As Nicole Kidman continues her mission to champion female directors, her latest role in writer-director Mimi Cave‘s Holland is proof positive of that very talent.
The Midwestern mystery stars the Oscar-winning actress as Nancy Vandergroot, a home economics teacher who feels so perfectly safe with her husband Fred (Matthew Macfadyen) and their son Harry (Jude Hill) in the picturesque Dutch-themed town of Holland, Michigan, that she idly wonders if it’s even real. But a missing pearl earring sends her down a conspiracy rabbit hole, which is only made deeper by her shop-teacher coworker Dave Delgado (Gael García Bernal), who has eyes for her, humoring her every whim.
Set in the aughts, the film is stacked with references to Blockbuster, Juggalos and Nokia cell phones, as well as a microfiche murder mystery montage. The familiar atmosphere of a time not so far removed also evokes the false safety of a Bush-era suburban life where real danger is at home.
For Nancy, the struggle is trusting her intuition and doing what’s right while prioritizing the safety of herself and her son, who idolizes his dad and expresses typical bratty teen contempt for his mom.
As she becomes more consumed in what seems to be a mystery of her own making, Nancy begins to throw out her principles, starting an affair with Dave while suspecting Fred of doing the same. Later, she ignores her “no junk food” rule while staking out her husband with her new lover. But that pales in comparison to what they discover.
Kidman’s witty and manic performance makes the film seem like a spiritual sequel to Gus Van Sant’s To Die For (1995), complete with biting dark humor and an even darker mystery they unravel, reminding fans why they fell in love with Kidman 30 years ago.
As always, Bernal gives a charming and intense performance as a man conflicted by his own dark past, as well as his feelings for Nancy and the trouble that surrounds her. Their chemistry emphasizes the drift growing between Nancy and Fred, who have grown too comfortable in their little slice of life that they miss what’s going on right under their noses.
Macfadyen is the perfect creepy suburban dad, gaslighting his wife into submission when not tending to his model train and town with his son in a wooden shed.
In one scene, Nancy experiences a crazy dream that foreshadows her grisly discovery, finding herself in the model town, which holds a dark secret. Could that secret be that AI-generated effects were used behind-the-scenes to create part of that dream? It certainly appeared that way.
But that’s one of the very few gripes I had with this film, other than the fact that Rachel Sennott was criminally underutilized, making a brief but comedically worthy appearance as Nancy’s grunge nanny who quickly gets the boot and is clueless as to the reason.
Holland is a beautifully-composed portrait of the claustrophobia of suburbia and the darkness simmering underneath the niceties of the Midwest. Be it traveling the world, a passionate affair or a sinister secret, everyone is just looking for a way out their own personal hell.
Title: Holland
Festival: SXSW (Headliner)
Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Release date: March 27
Director: Mimi Cave
Screenwriter: Andrew Sodorski
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, Jude Hill, Gael García Bernal
Running time: 1 hr 48 min
