My quick rating - 5.1/10. Holland, Michigan—home of tulips, windmills, suspicious dancing, and apparently, Nicole Kidman’s marital paranoia. Holland brings us Nancy (Kidman), a soft-spoken teacher living what appears to be a picture-perfect life in a town that looks like a Hallmark postcard threw up on itself. But as any good Midwesterner knows, behind every smiling face is a brewing storm, or at least a pretty juicy suspicion.
Nancy begins to suspect her husband Fred (played with subtle menace by Matthew MacFadyen) of cheating. The twist? She's the one actually having the affair. Nothing like an adulterer on a moral mission to spice things up! You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a woman gaslight herself into thinking she’s the victim while sneaking off to... grade papers with her coworker, presumably.
But wait, there's more! Because this wouldn’t be a psychological thriller without a series of bizarre dream sequences. Nancy’s dreams are like if Twin Peaks moved into a Dutch souvenir shop—colorful, unsettling, and filled with people who may or may not be speaking in riddles. You half expect a clog to tap out Morse code.
Unfortunately, all that dreamy potential is wasted. Despite being 110 minutes long, the story somehow races through every juicy narrative beat like it's trying to catch the last float at Tulip Time. The mystery around Fred? Barely explored. The thrilling turn the movie promises in the trailer? Let’s just say it took a wrong turn at Windmill Lane and never came back.
Visually, the film nails the Holland, MI vibe—quaint, friendly, and unnervingly Stepford-esque. And as someone who’s had real-life encounters with Holland and neighboring Zeeland's surreal charm (and its inexplicably magnetic and quite lovely Tulip Time festival-goers), I can confirm the town really is that weirdly wholesome. Sadly, that authenticity doesn't save the film from its own narrative flatness.
In the end, Holland is a middle-of-the-road mystery that mistakes mild tension for depth and scenic shots for storytelling. If you’ve ever wanted to watch Nicole Kidman bake a pie while existentially unraveling in slow motion, this is your jam. Otherwise, you might be better off visiting the real Holland. At least there, the windmills have more emotional range.
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https://jackmeat.com/holland-2025/
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