A woman’s picture-perfect life in quaint Holland, Michigan, crumbles when she and a friend uncover a twisted secret in their midst.
Set initially to star Naomi Watts and Bryan Cranston, this film was abandoned in 2015 and then picked up by Amazon Studios. A new cast and crew were eventually announced in 2022, and Nicole Kidman was to star in and produce the film. Mimi Cave was brought on as director. “Holland” premiered at the 32nd South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference and Festivals on March 9th, 2025, and is set to be released on Amazon Prime Video on March 27th.
The setting is the small town of Holland, Michigan, where plans are in motion for the annual festival celebrating its Dutch heritage and beautiful tulips. But behind the pretty costumes and charming smiles, the world of Nancy Vandergroot (Kidman) is beginning to unravel slowly. She seems restless and suspicious that her husband, often traveling out of town, might be involved in an affair. “Holland” is just that kind of small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Hence, Nancy, a homemaking teacher at the local school, ingratiates herself slowly to the shop teacher, Dave Delgado (Gael García Bernal), to help her sniff out the truth. In the process, a smoldering passion is ignited between the two.
While the sexual passion becomes a raging fire, Nancy’s suspicion of her husband suddenly turns in an unsuspected direction, and her determination to uncover his secrets is ignited. What she finds and is forced to confront is terrible and terrifying. In that horrifying secret, she finds her life irrevocably changed.
This role isn’t Nicole Kidman at her best, but still, she carries enough force to hold up an audience’s attention for the required hour and a half run time. She can be Nancy Vangeroot in her sleep. Bernal, a Mexican actor with weighty experience, also assists her in his role as the shop teacher who seems overwhelmed by her attention and suspicions. Matthew Macfadyen manages to be unremarkable as the vanilla-like husband whose transformation is surprising but not quite menacing enough, as the writer, Andrew Sodroski, lets him down.
Therein lies the film’s biggest fault. The tale is more than unbelievable, and Sodroski doesn’t help the actors with the lines he gives them, nor the logic needed to support the audience “buy into” everything that happens. However, in fairness, director Cave doesn’t help either. Does anyone ever work? The actors always seem available to advance the storyline. Do lovers seeking secrecy engage in energetic lovemaking in front of a double window at the front of a house? Questions like that occur throughout the film.
The audience is designated to catch every line of purpose, plan, and intention of the two, Kidman and Bernal, and to disregard those places where the writer and directors lead them astray. The result is a watchable film, only alarming us at the very end, but with no necessary or complete explanation of the events. In short, “Holland” is less than it might have been but still worth visiting.
Available to stream exclusively on Prime Video Thursday, March 27th
