HOLLAND (2025)

HOLLAND (2025)
Directed by: Mimi Cave
Written by: Andrew Sodroski
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Jude Hill, Matthew Macfadyen, Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman discovers dark secrets in this by the book thriller…..

Its Mimi Cave’s feature debut that casts a long shadow over her second feature. FRESH was one of the best films in 2022, a dark thriller that had Daisy Edgar Jones fall for the charm of Sebastian Stan, until an opening unexpected twist, turned the whole love story on its head.

With HOLLAND – no, not the country, but a town in Michigan- you’ll watch will an expectation that a mouth watering turn on events is set to occur and that the slow burn build up will be worth it. But long past the hour mark, you’ll begin to realise that perhaps the plot is heading the way you’d expect and the only surprise is that its taken this long to reveal its hand. Its not that its a disappointing ride to that point, as always the captivating Nicole Kidman, carries the film on her shoulders, its just that we’ve seen this all before and when the final credits roll, its a movie that you’d no doubt instantly forget.

Kidman plays Nancy, a perfect housewife – as you can tell just from that, its something we’ve seen her play many times before – whose life just seems normal in a town that looks like its still set in the 1950’s, where we are only one doorstep away from STEPFORD territory. Married to Fred (Succession‘s Matthew Macfadyen) with a young son named Harry (Jude Hill), the only excitement in her life is cooking meatloaf while Father and Son play with a huge model train set, built around a Beetlejuice style town. All that is about to change through when she discovers a little lie told by Fred that escalates in doubt and suspicions.

Confiding in her co-worker, fellow teacher Dave Delgado (Gael García Bernal) that there is more to her husband’s “out of town work trips” and so, they both set out to prove that Fred is indeed having an affair, while not realising that there is perhaps an illicit relationship developing between them both, the more time they spend together.

There are moments that entice for the viewer, especially the lingering question of “is Fred indeed having an affair or is it all in the mind of Nancy”?. There is one great sequence where Nancy breaks into Fred’s workplace to look for proof only for her husband to unexpectedly arrive and there is an air of dread as the plot moves forward, all held together by some stunning imagery by the deft direction of Cave which enhances what could have been bland scenes.

But despite the positives, HOLLAND ends up being a formulaic ride which at times is quite sloppy with its plotting. Some plot threads are left unresolved which baffle and once we get to the answer of the question, many will just put their hands up and say “We knew that a good hour ago” as its such an easy reveal that you do feel you are watching a standard 90s thriller which is quite fitting as the film is set in the year 2000.

Its quite ironic that Cave’s first film was titled FRESH as this is anything but and while a third act tension knuckle ride could easily have resolved the familiarity, the fact it never materialises, leaves you realising that while the hook kept you from switching off, the result is nothing we haven’t seen before in much better films, and on this occasion the journey wasn’t quite worth it….