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Image courtesy of Amazon Studios. |
Mimi Cave's "Holland" is a film that drops two large twists on its audience late in the picture. The first is genuinely surprising and effective, the second is being referred to as a twist but is really more of a head-scratcher as to why anyone would think this is a viable way to end a movie.
The picture bears some similarity to such films as "Don't Worry Darling" or "The Stepford Wives" in that it follows the story of a married woman in suburban America - Holland, Michigan, which has a lot of tulips and more of a Dutch influence than I'm willing to suspend my disbelief - who begins to think something's off about her husband, a dentist who goes to more conferences than she believes is necessary for his profession.
Nancy (Nicole Kidman) thinks Fred (Matthew Macfayden) is having some sort of affair and she enlists a fellow teacher - Dave (Gael Garcia Bernal), an immigrant who has been made to feel unwelcome in their small town - at the school where she works to help her to investigate. Fred comes off as a gaslighter, seemingly always telling his wife to ignore things that seem off and to just forge ahead.
Meanwhile, Fred complains to his and Nancy's young son, Harry (Jude Hill), about women in general and it's a scene that is meant to make viewers feel uncomfortable. Fred has a large train set that he obsessively shows Harry how to operate. And every few weeks, it seems he's off to another conference. Nancy becomes suspicious when she finds evidence that he had been in Madison, Wisconsin, a place he never mentioned to his wife that he'd traveled.
As Dave and Nancy sneak around, attempting to find evidence that Fred is cheating, they strike up a romance, although Dave feels uncomfortable running around with a married woman. He tells Nancy that he wants to be with her - but only in the right circumstances. Needless to say, their snooping leads to a surprising place.
I can't divulge any more without giving away the film's first big twist (the good one). There's literally nothing I can say about the second one, other than: Why? The first time the film pulls the rug out from under us, it's shocking and adds some significant suspense. The second time makes no sense whatsoever.
Kidman and Bernal make a decent team as the would-be lovers undertaking the investigation and the film's second half becomes increasingly more compelling after we learn some surprising new information. But "Holland" is, ultimately, a mixed bag.
It clearly draws comparisons to such movies as "The Stepford Wives" or "Don't Worry Darling," films about women who realize that the patriarchy is lying to them. But it doesn't really go anywhere thematically interesting with this concept.
Also, like such films as "Blue Velvet," the movie clearly believes that there's something awful under the surface of the suburbs but, unlike that movie, doesn't really have much to say about it. "Holland" is, for a spell, suspenseful and its performances are good, but it doesn't really do much with what could have been rich material.