Holland (Amazon)- Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, Gael Garcia Bernal, Jude Hill
As someone who uses sites like Gold Derby to track the awards races, I have noticed that for the past two years, there was a Nicole Kidman mention for something called Holand, MI. It never materialized in 2023, nor did it join the multitude of projects Nicole Kidman churned out in 2024. Amazon instead opted to abandon this title in March of 2025, sidestepping a theatrical launch, and serving it to their hungry Prime subscribers.Should that give you pause? Perhaps. Holland is a bit of a mess, but it is an interesting one. Sometimes it is better to watch a film flop that seems to be approaching from an atypical angle than it is to have to sit through something that is exceedingly formulaic, yet somehow seems to have misread the instructions of the formula that would typically lead to at least an average product.
Holland (which dropped the MI part of the title), follows Kidman as a housewife that begins to suspect her husbands various trips are not to where he says they are, or for the reasons he states. she’s ready to start pulling at the string of her idyllic life, even if it means looking into her doctor husband (Matthew Macfadyen) and exposing his cheating heart. the irony is, while we aren’t sure what his behavior is, we see that Kidman is drawn herself to another man (Gael Garcia Bernal) who believes that if they can catch her husband in the act, they can blackmail him so they can make a clean break and she can maintain custody of her son (Jude hill).
this has somewhat of a 50’s or 60’s feel to it, like a bit of The Dick Van Dyke Show mixed with The Stepford Wives. It also reminded me of Don’t worry Darling, in presenting what seemed like a picture perfect scenario that is anything but, and doing it all in a film that has a seemingly improbable giant left turn to make.
Yes, as it turns out, her husband does have a secret, and it isn’t what she expected. Even though the film has a nightmarish tone to it, it also plays with its white picket fence approach to life, and the clash of these ideas presents for both an interesting and inconsistent film. While I love Bernal, and wish him luck on getting an overdue Oscar nomination, his character feels out of place, and his chemistry with Kidman is non-existent. Jude hill, who wowed audiences with his leading performance in Belfast, is basically wasted in a role that seems forgotten about for large chunks. This is really a show between husband and wife, and the structure probably would have felt more solid if Kidman had seemed less like a victim of circumstance and more like a determined wife looking to tackle whatever her husbands indiscretions may be.
Because of several elements (some of which fall far too much into spoiler territory), the audio description track is pretty great. We got a really strong description of Kidman right off the bat, and when the movie takes a giant step away from normal, in these fever dream sequences, the description has a chance to really soar. I also really enjoyed the score, which also felt like a throwback to an earlier period. Ultimately, it feels like a film Hitchcock would have wanted to direct had he been able to live forever, but in less capable hands, elements outside the core structure seem to only peel away at whaat could have been an interesting foundation. Holland ends up feeling like a project in constant gestation, a victim of several cooks in the kitchen, likely rewrites, test screening reactions that led to misguided edits, and ultimately a product that is engaging but empty.
Rotten: Final Grade: C, Audio Description: A-
