One Hour Photo and the Tragedy of Loneliness
The moral case for realizing what might happen to you if you're alone.
We all get lonely sometimes.
Times when you feel like no one wants to spend any time with you or perhaps you don't want to do what other people are doing. It makes you feel like you're different from other people. As if no one really understands who you are and what you want. This can be especially true when you're sitting at home doing nothing. In doing so, you start to feel like you're alienated from other people. You can feel the emptiness of things around you, like your room or your house or even your living room. What's more is the longer you do it, the harder it is to decide to do something about it. You start to do things by yourself, often without other people's permission. The more you do this, the more you start to see the benefits of this.
Being alone means you don't have to coordinate with a whole bunch of people. You're never waiting on other people if you go out somewhere or have to get to a place on time. As a result, you're never late for anything and you tend to actually get things done when you need them to be done. It's all on your own schedule. On some level, the world opens up to you in ways that you never thought possible. There's nothing you can't do because you're not being held back by anyone else. Everything is up to you and there's something really powerful about having that kind of freedom.
At the same time, you will start to lose all kinds of important things. People in your life who you can turn to when you need something. The joy of being able to talk to someone about the thing you just did or the movie you just saw. While it doesn't seem like you've lost anything at first, these facts slowly start to become obvious to you the longer you're alone. Friends no longer call you or come around. Family members don't invite you to family gatherings. You start to feel as though you're missing something and part of you can want that back. It can get to the point where you start to try and create these relationships with people whether you have them or not. Imagine having the type of life you've somehow lost. You might even go to extreme lengths to try and get it back.
One Hour Photo is very much about what happens when you lose these connections to people. Sy Parrish, as played incredibly by Robin Williams, has lost almost all connection to everyone around him. He has either intentionally or not cut himself off from any kind of direct human connection. Sy has no friends, no family and he barely gets along with his co-workers and his boss. He's a profoundly lonely person and some part of him craves the ability to get someone back in his life. The only real connections he's managed are the imaginary connections he creates with people through the photos they take where he works and developing them.
But unfortunately, not even that can fully satisfy his need for some kind of emotional connection to someone. So he goes about trying to force himself into a family where he doesn't belong. In large part because he can't stand to be alone anymore. It's a sad state of affairs but also hauntingly beautiful.
Do yourself a favour and explore the tragedy of loneliness by checking out One Hour Photo today.
You can watch One Hour Photo on Disney Plus, as well as Hulu and Amazon.