A creepily effective film from the summer of 2002. Robin Williams is very good as Sy, a photo developer/clerk at a Target/Wal-Mart type department store, who has a fondness (or rather obsession) with a particular regular customer (Connie Nielsen of Gladiator) and her family. His admiration for what he considers the perfect family is shattered when he uncovers a dark secret about the customer's husband (Michael Vartan.) Rated "R" for language, nudity, sexual situations and peril.
Even though Robin Williams is excellent in this role, I hope he doesn't do too many more of them, lest he get pigeonholed.
In the scenes showing the store, I thought it was unusally devoid of customers.
The store in the film is named "SavMart," a fictional one. However, there was, years ago in the New York area, an electronics chain called "SaveMart."
Wow. Really a good movie - it has happened several times with recent movies that I found movies much acclaimed to be much less then expected, so I was really pleasantly surprised that this movie was made so well.
The visual imagery (as befitting the theme) was really well, esp. the clinical whitenss and the many empty corridors, deserted store in many instances, showing the sterility of the lives.
Robin Williams is really a superb actor, transforming completly into a different person from his previous movies, where he was mostly comic.
I wondered why the Yorkins hadn't locked the door when Sy walked in ... but it was just a fantasy!
Don't they have internal cameras in that store, that they would notice Sy stealing the knife? Or does he know exactly where they are positioned, and is standing out of range?
Strange that the manager didn't demand Sys keys before leaving, or send a guard along to watch while he cleaned out his locker... I thought that was standard procedure these days?
Why didn't Sy pay the gamera-as-birthday-gift for Jack out of his own money later, so the manager couldn't accuse him of stealing? Didn't he think it would be noticed as missing?
Did Sy not know about the second counter, or did he think nobody would notice? (Although the manager took some time noticing, if Sy had worked there for 10 years, and Jack is nine, and he started making prints for himself while Nina was pregnant!)
Sy has a good taste in TV, he watches the Simpsons, and The day the earth stood still, (Interesting they picked the threating part at the end, when the movie as whole is pacistific.)
Thinking about it again ...
When the cops come into Sy's home, they say he planned this very carefully. However, I wonder if they don't give him too much credit, given how easily he's caught at the hotel.
I also think that Sy didn't think about the consequences of making a 3rd set of pictures for himself all these years ... he probably never wanted to explore everything connected with it, because he felt if he did think more closely about it, he would have to realize that what he was doing was wrong. So he just shoved the whole issue away and didn't take precautions.
It's interesting that Nina never notices that Sy writes "3" prints instead of "2" on the envelopes, though she only pays and receives "2".
When the cops come into Sy's home, they say he planned this very carefully. However, I wonder if they don't give him too much credit, given how easily he's caught at the hotel.
Hey, they didn't say he planned it well.
I also think that Sy didn't think about the consequences of making a 3rd set of pictures for himself all these years ... he probably never wanted to explore everything connected with it, because he felt if he did think more closely about it, he would have to realize that what he was doing was wrong. So he just shoved the whole issue away and didn't take precautions.
What I find is that the first thing that Sy says when confronted about all of the extra prints is that his assistant's math isn't really that great... I wonder if Sy's been caught before and has been using this excuse for the occasional inconsistency in the records.