Alice Oscura, Featured Writer
Disclaimer: The following contains some spoilers
Nicole Kidman’s most recent psychological thriller Holland (2025) is about how a woman’s idyllic life begins to fall apart when she suspects that her husband might be having an affair. I know, not the most original plot idea, but it’s all about the execution of the story. Unfortunately, not even casting a Hollywood A-lister like Kidman could have saved this film from its mediocrity.
Kidman stars in the leading role of Nancy Vandergroot. She’s the paper cut-out of a middle-class community wife and devoted mother. Nancy is also a high school Home Economics teacher and married to Fred (Matthew Macfayden) who is the town optometrist, and they have a 13-year-old son named Harry (Jude Hill). The Vandergroot family lives in the Dutch native town of Holland in Michigan.
One day Nancy discovers that Fred keeps Polaroid photos hidden away in the garage. This wouldn’t normally be something to warrant suspicion except for the fact that they don’t own a Polaroid camera. She begins to suspect that his out-of-town conferences might be a ruse to cover up an extra-marital affair. She soon confides in Dave Delgado (Gael Garcia Bernal) who teaches shop at the local high school. Eventually, Nancy and Dave begin to develop feelings for each other, the result being that Dave agrees to help Nancy gather concrete evidence of Fred’s infidelity so that she can safely leave him, and they can be together. However, a much more sinister, darker secret is revealed which puts both their lives in danger.
I’ve always considered Nicole Kidman to be the veritable queen of thriller movies. However, I’ve felt that her recent films have been missing the mark for me. And something about her performance in Holland feels a bit stiff and unconnected. Granted anyone with eyes and powers of simple deduction can gauge that her character borders on being mentally unhinged. In fact, the character stated that Fred had saved her from a troubled life, which is why she chose to marry him. By the way, I am not too sure what it was (maybe just the odd makeup and lighting), but Kidman’s face looked a bit odd, artificial, glass-like and slightly swollen. I know that she is 57 years old, there are allowances to be made for that, but I thought that her makeup just looked very unnerving and strange.
One of the fundamental issues with trying to maintain a sense of ambiguity with the storyline is the unstable structuring. At first the audience will get a sense that Nancy is an inherently paranoid person by nature and tries to compensate by trying to be a perfect wife and mother. There’s a significance represented by her collection of disorganised jars or various bits and pieces of jewellery and trinkets that she hoards. It represents a way of repressing the part of her that she deems as her troubled personality that her husband tried to fix. However, once the story twists into the final act, there remains a huge disconnect due to the lack of chemistry and construction between the three main leads, especially between Kidman and Garcia.
Holland had so much potential but was lacking in so many areas that its faults overshadow the concept that they were going for, which was that you never know what really goes on behind closed doors in a closely knit community. There’s no sense of insurmountable danger lingering in the atmosphere until the final act and the film concludes in such an odd way that it attempted to lean towards a more psychological angle as an explanation for certain things that occurred. However, it just falls flat and leaves more questions than answers in the audience’s mind and doesn’t add anything even remotely essential to the film’s plot.
The film was directed by Mimi Cave (Fresh, 2022) and is currently available for streaming on Prime Video.
Dark Alice’s Score: 4 out of 10
And you can check out more of my psychological thriller reviews below:
Alice has an old soul and a curious mind. I believe that anyone can be a hero and that the good guys should always win! I dislike cruelty to animals and think that they have far superior qualities to humans. My motto is there is no future without the past. I also have a weird penchant for Paranormal TV shows even though the slightest sound makes me jump. I enjoy writing reviews and throwing in fun facts to pique the readers’ curiosity. My ultimate goal in life would be to become a published writer one day. Read More