Holland Review

Stories where things aren't exactly what they seem are nothing new to director Mimi Cave. A grocery story meet-cute becomes a nightmare driven by cannibalism in her incisive directing debut, Fresh. In her second film, Holland, Nicole Kidman plays Nancy Vandergroot, a housewife whose seemingly perfect life in Holland, Michigan, is turned upside down by a significant secret.

With its charming cottage-style homes and fields of tulips, Cave gives the town a technicolor sheen. Really, it's the ideal location. However, the illusion of perfection pushes Nancy in directions she wouldn't normally pursue. She starts to worry that her husband Fred (played by Matthew Macfadyen) might be having an affair because of this.

Holland starts off as a suburban melodrama before turning into a surreal mystery that surprises you. Although the story occasionally lacks the dynamism necessary to fully connect, Kidman, predictably, keeps the film going until the very end thanks to Cave's confident direction, which creates a sickly sweet, dreamy world.

Holland Morphs Becomes a Complete Horror

We can tell right away that something is wrong with Holland, Michigan. The town, which has Dutch influences, resembles a theme park facade with its cardboard cutout houses and plastic tulips that mimic suburbia. Although the actual time period in which this movie is set is the early 2000s, it exists in a sense outside of time. A huge model train that Fred painstakingly maintains in the Vandergroots' garage serves to emphasize this mood.

Nancy also seems to exist outside of any concrete reality; her naïveté reads almost like forgetfulness, as if she were floating above her own life and unattached to the world. She enjoys being a housewife and teacher, but occasionally it seems like she's just doing the routine: cooking meatloaf, spoiling her young son Harry (Jude Hill), and kissing Fred good-bye when he leaves on business trips.

However, Kidman is the heart of Holland, and she excels in the part. The best parts of Holland are watching Nancy's relationship with fellow teacher Dave (Gael Garcia Bernal) change as the movie moves from off-kilter comedy to classic caper, and her performance has hints of To Die For and The Stepford Wives.

Although Holland works in a variety of genres, her lead performance is the true balancing act in this case. Since 2018, Kidman has starred in roughly 11 movies and 6 TV series, making her possibly the hardest-working celebrity in Hollywood today. Kidman jumps right into these roles, taking on everything from independent films to prestige television, genre fare, and soap opera streaming series.

In its third act, Holland transforms into something more eerie, visiting some hideous locations.

All of those are combined into one film. The narrative itself occasionally falters, dragging out its first act before hurriedly moving on to its third. In the middle, when Dave and Nancy are looking into her husband before the big reveal, it is at its lightest. However, it never slows down once it gets going, and in its third act, it changes to something more eerie.

It's almost as though she doesn't want to dwell on it for too long, even though the macabre imagery creates an intriguing contrast with the picturesque visual language Cave established. I wished Holland would stay in the ugliness that lurked beneath the serene exterior of its namesake town, because I found myself craving more of it. Cave has once again shown that she is a director to watch, and Kidman's performance, despite its flaws, brings the movie home.

Holland made its debut at the SXSW Film Festival in 2025. On March 27, the movie will be available on Prime Video.

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