In the psychological thriller Holland, Mimi Cave’s follow-up to her “the modern dating scene is cannibalism” horror film Fresh, a father (Matthew Macfadyen’s Fred) tests his son on what’s to be done when you don’t feel like making the bed. It’s simple, really – throw a duvet over the mess, smooth it out, and delude yourself into thinking that’s a job well done.
Unfortunately for Holland, this is one of those instances in which a film has provided the bullet for its own execution. There is, in fact, no better way to describe what’s happened here. Andrew Sodorski’s script, which has bounced around Hollywood for a decade, has come out a half-baked mess. Cave’s role is to toss a layer of visual irony over it all and hope no one notices. Holland, with its floral wallpapers and porcelain figurines, and scenes that consistently end with a flare of violins, gestures aggressively towards kitsch. But Sodorski’s story is plain, dry melodrama. There’s not a lick of the camp, the satirical, or the demented in sight.
Nicole Kidman, operating in a mode of dewy-eyed, soon-to-be ruffled glamour, stars as frustrated midwestern housewife Nancy Vandergroot. In her opening monologue, she talks about her perfect life in Holland, Michigan, a Dutch-flavoured suburban postcard of windmills, model train sets, and litter-free streets, only to ponder, “sometimes I still wonder, is it even real?” Presumably not. She starts to suspect Fred, her optometrist husband always away at conferences, has been unfaithful. It’s plausible. Macfadyen plays him like he’s made out of moulded plastic.
But Cave has directed everyone here to indulge in the uncanny. And so, Nancy cackles and slaps the table while watching a rented VHS copy of Mrs Doubtfire. This is a period piece – Rachel Sennott’s cameo as a flannel-swaddled, hair-clipped babysitter immediately sets us in the early 2000s – yet it’s hard to believe anyone, at any point, was ever so taken aback by the realisation Mrs. Doubtfire was Robin Williams in drag.
There are surrealist dream sequences, too, of mannequins and model houses. At one point, Nancy robotically spreads ketchup over an uncooked meatloaf, only to snap and suddenly pummel the squelching lump of meat all over the table. She looks down at her hands. They’re covered in the red sauce. Oh, Cave eagerly prods at your shoulder, doesn’t that look a bit like blood? Nancy is abetted in her suspicions by a fellow teacher, Dave Delgado (Gael García Bernal), a loved-up narrative prop who fights off racist attackers purely, it seems, so Nancy can afterwards coo, “you were so manly!”
Nancy and Dave are clearly crazy about each other. Could her assertions about her husband’s supposed infidelity really be a projection of her own adulterous desires? The film underlines an already underlined point by intercutting a scene of unsatisfying marital sex with the cacophonous racket of Dutch clogs. Holland is one of those films that winds you in, that delivers suggestion after suggestion, tease after tease, only for its eventual reveal to satisfy none of its own questions. The duvet’s been pulled back. And, it turns out, there’s nothing there but a bare mattress.
Dir: Mimi Cave. Starring: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, Jude Hill, Gael García Bernal. 18, 108 minutes.
‘Holland’ is streaming on Prime Video
