‘Holland’ Review: Nicole Kidman Muddles Through a Stale Suburban Mess but at Least Her Wig is Fresh [C-] | SXSW
The tulips in Holland, Michigan aren’t usually splattered in blood. In the small town inhabited by the descendants of Dutch immigrants, the conservatism of the late 90s/early 2000s fills the air with a distinct floral scent that sees the residents residing somewhere almost out of reach to the surrounding areas. It’s a quiet town that surely doesn’t see its citizens murdering one another, or so you’d think. Mimi Cave’s newest film, Holland, forces the audience to gauge their dedication to the suspension of disbelief as Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman attempts to figure out what her husband keeps leaving to go do and why she hasn’t caught on any time prior.
Nancy (Kidman) has been living a peaceful existence. She doesn’t want for much, having a loving husband, Fred (Emmy winner Matthew Macfadyen), and a kind son, Harry (Jude Hill, Belfast). The three live in Holland, Michigan right at the new millennium, the town’s full name the original title of the film, though probably cut down since there’s no plot relevance to the setting. The opening scene shows Nancy relieving their babysitter, Candy (Rachel Sennott, a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance). Nancy has a Nokia phone that probably only has Snake on it with a limited amount of talk and text minutes, but the only person she’s concerned about speaking with is Fred. Any questions she has for the universe are typed directly into Ask Jeeves. He’s a great husband that cares for his family, although he’s constantly off on business trips that require him to be away from home for several days on end. When he’s home, however, Harry adores him, the two spending time with a miniature version of the town that has tulip fields, windmills, and colorful buildings that represent the vibrancy of their town.
When Nancy finds a parking ticket from a town not previously on Fred’s itinerary, she begins to question her reality and the world they’ve built together. Perhaps Fred is more concerned about the plastic one he’s built with Harry, something he can watch over with his thumb down on the people below him. She enlists the help of her friend, Dave (Golden Globe winner Gael García Bernal), to investigate, now thinking her husband is having an affair. Holland makes it known immediately something much more sinister is happening, the evil energy surrounding Matthew Macfadyen in the film pronounced and obviously pointing to something darker. The convolution heightens with each new subplot that enters the narrative, an issue Cave did not run into with her directorial debut, 2022’s brave and risky Fresh, which worked slightly better with less distracting narrative choices.
The film doesn’t take many twists or turns, reveling in the few that it does take and seeing them as enough to float the rest of the choices made by Cave. The biggest issue with Holland is that nothing feels earned, creating a narrative that ebbs and flows how it pleases with little to no explanation on the connective tissue required to get there. Nicole Kidman is reliably good, but nowhere near enough to save the meandering plot that never grounds itself in one narrative: the film wants to push itself towards an incisive look at the nightmares of suburbia, but can’t decide on how it wants to present its central marriage. Holland wants to be a marriage drama with an undercurrent of psychological torment, perhaps using The Stepford Wives as a jumping off point when storyboarding, but never dives in fully enough to actually create the dissonance needed for such a feat. The extended runtime for such a plot would benefit from managing this relationship a bit better by bringing actuality to their love instead of a forced-nature that gives immediate way into the back half’s reveal. The film undercuts its own built tension throughout the film by now allowing the audience to sit with any new details for more than a few minutes without pushing something else into the narrative. Its attempts at jokes don’t land, only muddling the tone further with each miss. Macfadyen presents the character with a fatherly demeanor that perfectly fits the role, shifting slowly throughout as everything unravels, but the two lead performances aren’t enough to make anything else digestible. Nancy begins an affair in the film that seems more out of place than a rose in a tulip field, both confusing and awkward in execution. It’s unfortunate that all the right pieces don’t fit together exactly the right way.
The setting itself, the town of Holland, doesn’t necessarily provide any extra layers to the ongoing story. It feels strange that the film is even set here because other than a couple of scenes with parades happening, it doesn’t really matter where the characters are. Not that the town has to be of use, but using such a town as a decorative set piece seemingly for the sole reason of splattering blood on tulips at some point in the film seems a bit much. There are at least three points where it seems like the film might end, then pushes forward another fifteen minutes until it finally comes to a violent finale. The plot’s simplicity is its biggest downfall, unable to sustain itself for the entirety of the film’s runtime and forfeiting all built tension by the end. It convolutes itself by tossing in previously unmentioned, critical pieces that seem more concerned with being sly than fitting the story: the inclusion of a string of murders tossed in after the midway point in the film remains shocking. Even the dedication of Nicole Kidman cannot save a plot that’s too eager to reveal itself without the necessary components that would give the film’s reveals the shock value sought after. One of the more redeemable parts of this film is actually Kidman’s wig, which — for once — appears to have been fitted for her prior to the shoot and meant for her to wear. It’s a bright spot in dark waters.
Holland, Michigan is a quiet, small town that doesn’t see much outside of its citizens being kind to one another. To put darkness in its roots might work if the dedication was there to complete the circle, to push the other characters into the possibility of degradation and corruption. The film is too concerned with being squeaky clean by way of condensing itself and not providing enough context of the lives of its characters. More than once, Nancy is almost caught sneaking around in an attempt to catch her husband lying, the tension immediately dissolved by the repetition. In a town like this, the blood on the flowers is only messy until someone comes and cleans it off. Then they’ll pretend it never happened.
Grade: C-
This review is from the 2025 SXSW Film and Television Festival. Holland will premiere on Prime Video March 27, 2025.
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