On March 27, Prime Video premiered a thriller with elements of satirical black comedy «Holland» starring Nicole Kidman, Gael Garcia Bernal and Matthew Macfadyen. Kidman also co-produced the film, and in the review below, we offer to find out what the Australian-American star and her fellow filmmakers managed to do in the end.
Pluses:
good cast; quite interesting «the same twist», beautifully designed movie;
Minuses:
Genre-wise and intonation-wise, it’s something indecipherable; the movie doesn’t really entertain or provide interesting food for thought; it’s a boring story;
«Holland»
Genre thriller
Director Mimi Cave
Starring Nicole Kidman, Gael Garcia Bernal, Matthew Macfadyen, Jude Gill, Rachel Sennett, Lennon Parham, Isaac Krasner, Jeff Pope, Jacob Moran, Bill Russell
Premiere Prime Video
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
Nancy Vandergrout lives in the picturesque town of Holland, Michigan, works as a teacher at a local school and seems to be a happy mother and wife. Together with her loving husband Fred and teenage son Harry, she lives in a perfect white house, always prepares the perfect delicious dinner for the whole family, and generally seems to live the perfect life.
But in reality, not everything is so smooth in Nancy’s life: Fred’s too frequent business trips as an ophthalmologist, as well as some things found in his garage, make her doubt her husband’s loyalty. Enlisting the support of her colleague Dave Delgado, the protagonist begins to follow her husband. But does she have real reasons for this distrustful behavior, or maybe the homeroom teacher is just tired of a humdrum and all-too-predictable marriage?
Three years ago, director Mimi Cave made a bold statement with her feature debut «Fresh». It is obvious that this filmmaker is not without talent, and her new film — is further proof of this. Unfortunately, behind the facade of a potentially fascinating satirical thriller with a striking visual component in every sense, there is a continuous intonational uncertainty and, as a result, a lack of meaningful expression.
The problem is that the filmmakers don’t seem to have decided what they are making and for whom they are making it. For a quality thriller, there is too little suspense. There is not enough room for jokes for a black comedy. And there’s no expressive satire as such.
It is still worthwhile to understand what it is. The film takes place in a real American town with the telling name of Holland, where flower beds with evenly planted tulips are adjacent to windmills, and the locals do not disdain to dress up in matching old clothes and wooden shoes. All this bizarre tinsel is meant to emphasize, to ridicule the general artificiality of the world order shown and, in particular, the masked characters who have something to hide. But, again, Mimi Cave’s satirical/comedic efforts are weak; even the local racism is there purely for show.
In addition, the target audience of «Holland» is not very clear, because the film does not work well as a weekend entertainment or as a mystery story that requires a certain intellectual commitment.
Here and there, Cave scatters expressive visual clues, such as «Mrs. Doubtfire» on the TV screen, ketchup-stained meat pies, or mirror reflections, which should lead to the suspicion that someone is clearly pretending to be someone else. To satisfy this intrigue, there is one rather interesting twist that may come as a surprise. However, unfortunately, this does not make the movie much more exciting.
At the end of the hour-long timing, the famous «Party Up (Up in Here)» by the American rapper DMX will suddenly and unexpectedly break into the measured narrative, risking waking up those who have already managed to fall asleep. However, the driving track will not last long and will soon return the viewer to the atmosphere of burdensome boredom.
It is also worth noting that the creators moved the action to the beginning of the noughties — bulky CRT monitors, landlines, pagers, button Nokia or film cameras. In Holland, time seems to stand still, but this factor doesn’t really affect anything, except for the fact that Nicole Kidman’s character dies of boredom.
