A Hole in One (2004)
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17% of critics liked it
(12 reviews) -
30% of users liked it
(114 ratings)
A Hole in One is set in 1950s America. Anna (Michelle Williams), a passive young woman living in a small town, where she is betrothed to a powerful local hoodlum, Billy (Meat Loaf Aday), is searching for a key to her unhappiness. Her younger brother came home from the World War II a different man,… More A Hole in One is set in 1950s America. Anna (Michelle Williams), a passive young woman living in a small town, where she is betrothed to a powerful local hoodlum, Billy (Meat Loaf Aday), is searching for a key to her unhappiness. Her younger brother came home from the World War II a different man, and was subjected to shock treatments in a mental hospital before his untimely death. Dr. Harold Ashton (Bill Raymond) has been selling his new book, intended to advance the cause of a new scientific "advancement" in psychiatric care, the transorbital lobotomy. Ashton promotes this procedure, done with an ice pick that he keeps tucked in his vest, as a cure for all kinds of mental illness, major and minor. After witnessing Billy commit a brutal murder, Anna reads a Life Magazine article on lobotomies, and soon decides that the procedure is right for her. She asks Billy for his permission. Billy, concerned about Anna's ability to function, convinces Tom (Tim Guinee), one of his employees, to pose as a doctor so he can tell Anna that she doesn't need a lobotomy. But when the two meet, they quickly find that they have a connection that will put their lives in imminent danger. A Hole in One marks the feature debut of writer/director Richard Ledes. The film had its world premiere at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi
- Directed By
- Richard Ledes
- Genres
- Comedy, Drama
Unrated,
- In Theaters
- May 2, 2004 Wide
- On DVD
- Dec 27, 2005
- Studio
- Wellspring Media Inc.
Critic Reviews
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Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times
A Hole in One aspires to the Sirkian social satire of Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, but the result is closer to a Coen brothers film with all the funny parts removed.
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Lou Lumenick, New York Post
Things play out differently than expected, though not in any particularly interesting or entertaining way.
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Dana Stevens, New York Times
With its heavy symbolism and awkward, lurching pace, A Hole in One leaves viewers with little more than the vague conviction that falling in love is better than an ice pick to the brain.
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Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
Director-writer Richard Ledes shows better command of 1950s period atmosphere than he does of either his subject or his cast.
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John Anderson, Newsday
In writer-director Richard Ledes dreamy, '50s-era film, the lobotomy is touted as a way of controlling the uncontrollable and pacifying the anxious.
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Cast
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Michelle Williams
as Anna
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Meat Loaf
as Billy
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Tim Guinee
as Dr. Tom Franklin
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Louis Zorich
as Sammy
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Bill Raymond
as Dr. Harold Ashton
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Wendell Pierce
as Dan
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Merritt Wever
as Betty
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Gerry Mendicino
as Johnny
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Mark Day
as Mark
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Ileen Getz
as Nurse Aphrodite
- Jonathan Watton
