‘Holland’ review: Nicole Kidman is a desperate housewife in Mimi Cave’s suburban thriller

Dir: Mimi Cave. US. 2024. 108mins 

In Holland, Nicole Kidman plays a troubled suburbanite convinced her husband is having an affair — a suspicion that this intriguing, ultimately unsuccessful film never fully answers. Director Mimi Cave’s follow-up to Fresh is a prickly character study that doubles as a psychological thriller, set in a too-good-to-be-true tranquil American neighbourhood that predictably contains twisted secrets underneath the inviting surface. Despite the story’s cliched milieu, Kidman commands the viewer’s attention as a deeply unhappy soul who may be inventing her own misery.

The film’s off-kilter tone and the beguiling opacity of the characters only enrapture for so long

After debuting at SXSW, the film will stream on Prime Video on March 27. Audiences will tune in because of Kidman, although the ensemble also includes fine supporting work from Matthew Macfadyen and Gael Garcia Bernal. Those who saw Cave’s first film, 2022’s gruesome, sarcastic horror-thriller Fresh, will appreciate the director’s continued fascination with bizarre romantic scenarios, and Holland’s familiar trappings might encourage the curious to give this opaque drama a try.

The film introduces us to Nancy (Kidman), a bubbly but brittle teacher who lives in cosy Holland, Michigan, with her optometrist husband Fred (Macfadyen) and young son Harry (Jude Hill). Everything in her world is wonderful until she begins to doubt Fred’s fidelity, believing he is engaging in a tryst during out-of-town work trips. Roping in her friend and fellow teacher Dave (Garcia Bernal) to assist, Nancy hatches an elaborate plan to catch Fred — while developing feelings for the clearly smitten Dave.

From American Beauty to Little Children and the Kidman HBO series Big Little Lies, film and television dramas have repeatedly warned us that picturesque suburbs can conceal rotten realities. Written by Andrew Sodroski, Holland is at its weakest when it espouses this well-worn insight, failing to find much new to say about these lives of quiet desperation. (Pawel Pogorzelski’s pristine cinematography and Alex Somers’ flowery score emphasise Holland’s dreamlike charm — which, we will quickly learn, is mostly a mirage.)

But Holland enters much more fertile narrative terrain once Nancy plots to expose Fred’s affair. Her proof is fairly flimsy, but Holland follows along as she puts together the pieces that, she is sure, will prove his unfaithfulness. Because Dave pines for Nancy, he barely protests, simply happy to be her confidant on this journey — especially when it becomes apparent that she also feels a spark between them. But even here, Cave lets the audience wrestle with uncertainty. Does Nancy really have feelings for Dave? Or has the excitement of this covert investigation artificially heightened her attraction to him? 

Kidman’s subtle performance leaves these questions unanswered, as well as many others. The more time we spend with Nancy, the less we feel that we know her. Holland reveals little about Nancy’s backstory, but a throwaway comment about her going through a “dark time” before meeting Fred suggests a disturbing discontent behind the character’s perfect smile — and perhaps a nagging tendency toward self-sabotage when her life becomes too static. (Tellingly, Holland opens with Nancy accusing the babysitter of stealing a single earring — a ridiculous charge considering that the far more likely explanation is that Nancy simply misplaced it.)

Led by a protagonist whose judgment we’re not sure we can trust, Holland has its arresting moments. As Nancy and Dave’s own fling intensifies, her motives remain teasingly unclear. Garcia Bernal expertly plays a weak-willed man who has little to cling to other than his infatuation for Nancy. As for Macfadyen, his Fred is a wonderfully ambiguous figure. Exasperated but loving, the character seems detached enough that maybe he is cheating on his spouse — then again, maybe he has just come to accept that his irrational wife needs a little space when she starts spiralling. 

Unfortunately, the film’s off-kilter tone and the characters’ beguiling opacity only enrapture for so long. The constant commentary about the banality of suburbia deadens the story, and a couple of late-reel twists fail to satisfy. Although Holland’s characters live for their secrets, they aren’t as startling as the filmmakers would like to believe.