HOLLAND
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, Jude Hill, Rachel Sennott, and Gael García Bernal
Director: Mimi Cave
BODE
It’s admirable that Nicole Kidman is still taking risks decades into her career, both as an actor and a producer. Sometimes, they pay off. Other times, they don’t. Unfortunately, Holland slots right into the latter. While director Mimi Cave certainly has style to spare (helped in part by Pawel Pogorzelski’s lensing), it’s all in service of a slapdash script that fails to establish stakes, tension or actual characters, so much so that Kidman and co-stars Matthew Macfadyen and Gael García Bernal seem lost throughout. Even with a bloody finale, Holland still ends up feeling like a waste of time.
KATIE
Holland feels like familiar ground for Nicole Kidman, but even her pitch-perfect performance isn't enough to inject the excitement needed for the film to work. It immediately establishes themes of artifice and the suffocating life of the perfect wife and mother, but it never goes far enough in terms of thrills or exploring the unnervingly conformist town. Gael García Bernal’s character Dave raises concerns about the tensions that exist in a mostly white community that co-opts colonial European values, but this idea is unfortunately never fully realised. Although the cast and cinematography are fantastic, Holland isn't subversive enough to succeed.
ROBERT
How many more “underlying darkness in seemingly perfect Middle America town-type” stories can be told? Apparently, at least one more, as Holland now graces Amazon Prime. Very early on, without advanced knowledge, I was expecting death and blood to wash over the central idea of the film before it was even hinted, so fortunately, they didn’t disappoint there. However, even with Nicole Kidman playing the part of over-her-head housewife trying to unravel the mystery of her husband’s doings, and Matthew Macfadyen dusting off his Tom Wambsgans’ overcoat for another go, the movie couldn’t plug the dyke to prevent my boredom from overflowing.
BRYAN
Nicole Kidman is one of those actors that is impossible to hate, even when she’s a part of something as horrifically putrid as Holland. Mimi Cave's sophomore outing is a massive downgrade from her excellent debut, showcasing a thriller without any thrill, and an incredibly meandering approach. This wants to be a Coen Brothers joint so badly, yet it plays out like a parody while treating everything with the utmost seriousness. If one wants to talk about promising projects that completely fumbled the bag, this is easily one of them. Thankfully, it was dumped straight to streaming and no one will watch.
