The Safe House - Expositions

Most movie fans will agree that even when he's not trying to play creepy, Robin Williams comes across as creepy. This is usually the case for most comedians who use humour to masquerade some deep-rooted emotional issues. And now that Williams is making a point of taking on more dramatic roles (Insomnia) in order to "expand" his repertoire, this creepiness is ever the more disturbing.

This is the reason award-winning music-video director Mark Romanek sought out the Oscar winner for his thriller One Hour Photo. "If you look more closely at some of Robin's dramatic work, you come to realize that his character isn't as far afield from his previous roles as you might imagine," Romanek explains in the press notes.

Insiders have joked that Williams was most likely drawn to the role by a pitch that went something like this: "It's The Cable Guy meets What About Bob?, except that it's not supposed to be funny. And Robin Williams will be even scarier than Robert De Niro was in Cape Fear. Wait'll you see it!"

And considering that De Niro has moved over to comedy (Meet the Parents, Analyze This), the road has been left open for Williams to play the psycho roles.

One Hour Photo centres on Seymour "Sy" Parrish (Williams), a lonely photo technician at the local SavMart one-hour photo counter, who develops an obsession with long-time customers, the suburban Yorkin family (Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, young Dylan Smith). After monitoring them from afar through the photographs they drop off at his counter, he discovers a shameful secret about the family, and switches from voyeur to an active force in the Yorkins' lives. One cop (Eriq LaSalle) starts investigating the shop, trying to track down who is interfering with the Yorkins lives.

Williams, whose career has been a rollercoaster of good (Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society) and bad (Bicentennial Man, Jacob the Liar) movies, admits that Parrish is a role that he felt comfortable identifying with. "People always say, Oh, he plays such nice people.' This man is nice, but with a dark side," Williams said recently. "He does things that are creepy, bizarre. It's interesting stuff to inhabit a real and very, very fascinating character."

Perhaps one of the reasons Williams finds affinity in troubled Parrish is that he too has led a controversial and emotionally unstable lifestyle. There was the time he was sued by a woman who claimed he had given her herpes (he claimed extortion and countersued). The case was settled out of court and the details not disclosed. He also got heat for allegedly snorting coke with actor John Belushi shortly before his fatal overdose in 1982. Apparently clean now, allegations of cocaine abuse still haunt the manic actor.

Then of course, there is the matter of his marriages. Williams married dancer Valerie Velardi in 1978. The two had a son named Zachary. Ten years later, Williams gave the tabloids plenty of fodder when he left his wife to hook up with his son's young nanny, Marsha Garces. The disbelief turned to scoffs of derision when it was announced that he had arranged for her to produce his next picture, Mrs. Doubtfire. Of course, the duo had the last laugh as Mrs. Doubtfire went on to become a monstrous hit.

It's doubtful that One Hour Photo will elicit the same acclaim, considering the bouncing around of the film's release date (usually a bad sign). Originally the studio was to open wide in 1,000 theatres on September 28th, 2001, then December, 2001, then April, 2002, and finally, for August, 2002. Has Williams given up his exuberant, kinetic looniness for the good? Only time will tell.

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