In Holland, director Mimi Cave creates an eerie portrait of a seemingly perfect American town, steeped in the trappings of a fantasy Dutch village. The town, with its windmills, tulip fields, and quaint canal houses, feels almost like a dream to its residents, but to outsiders, it’s a picture of kitsch. For Nancy Vandergroot (Nicole Kidman), the town appears charming, but to the audience, it’s more surreal and unsettling — a setting where things aren’t as they seem, echoing the tone of Kidman’s previous roles in To Die For and The Stepford Wives.
Like those films, Holland invites the audience to experience events through Nancy’s increasingly unreliable perspective. This disorienting point of view keeps viewers on edge, constantly questioning whether Nancy is simply losing her grip on reality or if she’s the only sane person in an increasingly bizarre world. The film, adapted from Andrew Sodroski’s Black Listed script, offers ample opportunities for wild interpretations, though the narrative eventually falls into more conventional territory, a turn that some might find underwhelming. Initially, Holland was even envisioned as a project for director Errol Morris, with Naomi Watts attached to star.
This film marks Cave’s follow-up to Fresh, a darkly satirical exploration of toxic relationships that delved into themes of gaslighting, setting the stage for an interesting comparison between both works. Holland, however, leans more into a throwback to ’90s thrillers about domestic deception, with its narrative veering into familiar territory for those who recall films like Sleeping with the Enemy.
At the center of Holland is Nancy’s increasingly suspicious relationship with her husband, Fred (Matthew Macfadyen), an optometrist who spends his free time immersed in model trains — a hobby he shares with their teenage son, Harry (Jude Hill). Nancy’s world begins to unravel when she discovers Fred’s troubling behavior, including a chilling scene where she spies him mutilating a small plastic figure in his private model railroad room. While Fred’s seemingly odd behavior raises red flags, Nancy’s own motives are just as unclear. Could her suspicions be fueled by her own guilt over an affair she’s developing with Dave (Gael García Bernal), a sympathetic shop teacher at the local high school?
As Nancy digs deeper into Fred’s life, she confronts memories of her own troubled past. She recalls a time when she wasn’t so firmly entrenched in the small-town perfection that now seems suffocating. Holland touches on the theme of longing for escape, with Nancy confiding in Dave about her past experiences of being an outsider and the way Fred helped her fit in. The couple’s perfect suburban life, which Nancy once craved, now feels more like a gilded cage.
Cave excels in crafting suspenseful moments, particularly in sequences where Nancy investigates Fred’s activities, from sneaking around his office to tracking his every move during his frequent “business trips.” The tension intensifies through Nancy’s increasingly unreliable dreams, where Cave’s direction allows for expressionistic flourishes that blur the lines between reality and fantasy. These surreal moments heighten the sense of paranoia and unease that pervades the film.
Production designer JC Molina and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski further accentuate the film’s psychological tension, incorporating subtle visual cues that mirror Nancy’s spiraling paranoia. The cinematography is particularly inventive, with shots that distort scale and perspective, such as an overhead shot that makes Nancy and her son appear as though they’re tiny figures in a model train set.
Macfadyen brings a disconcertingly calm and affable energy to his portrayal of Fred, which only deepens the mystery surrounding his character. His performance channels a sort of sinister charm, reminiscent of Kevin Spacey’s role in American Beauty. Kidman, too, delivers a nuanced performance, with her slightly artificial appearance serving to heighten the film’s unsettling tone, making it clear that nothing in Nancy’s world is truly what it appears.
Holland ultimately serves as an exploration of the contrast between idyllic domesticity and the dark truths lurking beneath the surface. While the film’s resolution doesn’t offer the shock value some may anticipate, it remains an intriguing exploration of the breakdown of suburban perfection, albeit one that never fully embraces its potential for outrage or camp. In the end, Holland delivers an experience that feels both oddly familiar and yet tantalizingly out of reach — a film that teases its audience but never quite fulfills its promise of truly going off the rails.
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