Unfortunately, the tag ‘Piece’ of mind is not a typo. During the early 1950s it is estimated that perhaps 5,000 lobotomies per year were performed in the U.S.; some by medical advisement and some, believe it or not, were voluntary. Such is the case with Anna (Michelle Williams from "Imaginary Heroes," "The Station Agent" and TVs "Dawson’s Creek"), an emotionally shaken teenage girl who becomes a "victim of her times."

Anna’s brother Bobby (Jonathan Watton) comes home from WWII shell shocked out of reality and emotionally abandoned by his parents because he has "killed people." It was all about emotion at that time¾ to deaden it. More than the refrigerated warehouses give off a distinct chill in Icetown, the small coastal village that is the setting for this macabre comedy.

Bobby spends eight years at the appropriately named Merry Joint Psychiatric Hospital for Veterans, receiving shock treatments and the trendy new transorbital lobotomy, before he commits suicide. Anna’s parents forbid her to attend her brother’s funeral yet push her into the arms of the town thug (and resident psychopath), Billy (played with menacing zeal by Meat Loaf Aday).

Anna is driven to the limits of her sanity when she witnesses Billy and his goons viciously beat and kill her friend Sammy (Louis Zorich), a fisherman and the owner of a restaurant. Billy is violently jealous because Sammy cooked Anna a delicious fish dinner from his catch of the day.

Anna’s salvation comes in the person of Tom (Tim Guinee from "Ladder 49"), who works for Billy, doing odd jobs. Ironically, Billy asks Tom to pose as a doctor who performs lobotomies but to advise Anna against having it done. Tom and Anna are attracted to one another and of course, that spells big trouble for Tom.

"A Hole in One" is a beautifully photographed film with more than a nod to film noir, with the play of light and shadow, and very effective rain. Period costumes and settings, and particularly Michelle Williams’ highly glossed red lips, lend a tempestuous reality to the story.

Recreating real events to make a fiction film is probably more effective than using the documentary footage writer-director Richard Ledes had access to. Documentaries are a wonderful film format, but to hold audience attention, there is the need for the drama of human emotion and some entertainment value, none of which is lost here.

This story makes you glad you weren’t one of the 10% of the population that might have seen a doctor like Ashton for a diagnosis 50 years ago. You may have had peace of mind but at what price? In some cases, the cure is indeed worse than the illness.