A Hole in One

This could be considered absurdist, but is actually existentialist. What is "normal?" What does it mean to be surrounded by normal people when your thinking is different? The acting is superb by all, but Michelle Williams has the understanding of the craft to lift this existential story to the realm of universal truth. Richard Ledes' writing and direction keeps us guessing, while also driving the story and us to recognize that we all are lost and looking for something while what we need exists always already in our lives. It also underlines how mental health is so misunderstood in our culture and is easily exploited by ideas of profit and control.

Wildly uneven acting and directing seemingly presumes that the movie audience has already had their own 'transorbital' lobotomies before witnessing this cranial-comedic mess!

Michelle Williams ("The Baxter") continues as 'indie princess' in another film that's beneath her talents as an actress. Why Hollywood has failed to discover her we'll never know but if she keeps making movies like this one she may never get found.

First-time writer-director Richard Ledes fails in both departments and somehow manages to make even the usually reliable 'Meat Loaf' turn in a substandard, way over-the-top performance.

Beware this one and fans of the actors should wait for the DVD which probably won't be long in coming ... you've been warned!

All the better to...you with

Holy Toledo what kind of film is this? It has all the earmarks of an independent film. The actors look like they're reading the script except for Meatloaf looks like he doesn't know where the script is. The props are real enough. The camera jerks around like the "Blair witch project." The music came from an old Hallmark film. Moreover, the pointed humor is blunt. The lobotomy scenes are right out of "The Seven Year Itch" - Upward inward, pulsating, ending, and unending.

A girl Anna Watson (Michelle Williams) with a slight disorder is in a dysfunctional world. As we see what her problem is, we also get a real glimpse of TV and camera footage from the 50. There was the Rosa Luxemberg trial and the bomb (the big one). Even "The Tenth Man" broadcast was real. You can see the yellowing pages of a copy of Life Magazine from 1947. Anna cannot communicate with her brother after the war as he has gone off the mental deep end. Besides, her gangster husband is a sort of hands-on guy when it comes to dealing with anger.

Anna decides the only way to face her problems is to get a lobotomy. Her gangster boyfriend convinces one of his subordinates Tom (Tim Guinee) to play the doctor and tell her she does not need one. Tom plays the doctor too well.

Dr. Tom Franklin: You know, I'm not a real doctor.

Anna Watson: It's ok; I'm not a real patient.

The ending is quite cool.

The film uses real events, including grainy footage, to flesh out the environment of the main characters, but there are also hypnotic, color-saturated views of breaking waves. All the visual elements work together to pull us forward - the tones and textures are rich and absorbing. At the same time, the story moves ahead in a confusion of scary and strange images contrasted with that hard sheen of normalcy associated with the 50's. We come to know the characters slowly and the film is a continual discovery. Many of the images strike a deep chord, though it may not be immediately apparent why. I would like to compare "A Hole in One" to some of Yeats' best poetry. Over time, the pictures and words come washing back and new meanings may take form alongside the first reading. In a similar way, the film is firmly rooted in its time frame, and yet speaks to a contemporary audience on many levels. The actors' performances do the writing full justice.