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After the middling Babygirl, one would have hoped that producer Nicole Kidman’s next acting effort would be worthy of her talents. The Australian actor has sadly not starred in a good movie since one of her best-ever turns in Robert Eggers’s The Northman. The rest of her current filmography comprises forgettable streaming offerings, large-scale blockbusters, or failed awards contenders. Unfortunately, her latest movie, Holland, is another direct-to-streaming offering that will have an equal amount of impact that Richard LaGravenese’s A Family Affair had, i.e., release and be immediately forgotten in the service’s ever-growing algorithm.
Nicole Kidman and Mimi Cave
It’s a real shame, too. Holland‘s filmmaker, Mimi Cave, delivered one of the most exciting feature film debuts in 2023 with the direct-to-Hulu horror romantic comedy Fresh. With an assured sense of style and two captivating performances from both Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan, Cave positioned herself as a fresh (pun absolutely intended) new voice in contemporary genre cinema with a long career ahead of her. It’s only natural that Kidman would want to collaborate with this burgeoning talent. This is especially true as part of her pledge to collaborate with female filmmakers every eighteen months. So far, she has delivered on that promise, either in film or television, by working with thrilling voices such as Karyn Kusama, Halina Reijn, Lulu Wang, and Susanne Bier.
On paper, partnering with Cave for her latest project with a female creative certainly seemed like a great choice, as was Babygirl, in the wake of Reijn’s success with the incredible Bodies Bodies Bodies. Who wouldn’t want to work with such an astute formalist with a clear vision of what modern genre cinema should aspire to be?
With such a well-mounted cast, which includes Matthew Macfadyen (Succession, Deadpool & Wolverine), Gael García Bernal (Old, Station Eleven, Werewolf by Night), and Rachel Sennott (Shiva Baby, Bodies Bodies Bodies, I Used to Be Funny), Holland genuinely looked like one of the most attractive titles coming out of South by Southwest, with a release on Prime Video later this March. Unfortunately, this muddled affair is only worth watching for one specific element: director of photography Pawel Pogorzelski’s (Munchausen, C’est La Vie, Hereditary, Midsommar, Fresh, Beau Is Afraid) staggering cinematography.
Holland Has Style for Days, But Little Substance
No movie released this year has had such a captivating sense of style as Cave’s mystery thriller. Holland immediately grabs our attention during its opening credits sequence. Here, the family of Nancy Vandergroot (Kidman) is showcased through the blinding lights of a photographic flash. Pogorzelski’s photography is unmatched as a cinematographer who consistently reinvents his approach to capturing dread through his collaborations with Ari Aster or in working with Cave for Fresh. He reteams with Cave, who has foregone what she established in Fresh, and takes a different stylistic approach for Holland. Through her changing color palette that responds to a story evolving through darker territory, one can see that David Lynch’s Blue Velvet inspired her. However, it’s not nearly as off-kilter and aesthetically striking as that film ever was (no one can ever do Lynch but the late auteur himself).
Cave’s confidence is the most admirable thing about Holland. Her transitions, with the aid of the late Jean-Marc Vallée’s editor Martin Pensa, are electric and continuously keep us riveted in our seats as Nancy uncovers a mystery surrounding her husband, Frank (Macfadyen), after she suspects he is having an affair. With a colleague from school, Dave (García Bernal), the two attempt to find irrefutable evidence proving Frank is indeed cheating on Nancy. However, what they, in turn, discover is far more sinister than their initial suspicions were.
Without divulging this reveal, I would say it slightly took me by surprise. Cave is lucky to have one incredible cinematographer and editor at her side to effectively craft sequences of pitch-perfect tension, wherein Nancy is always caught in the middle of planned investigations that always go wrong. It results in mildly amusing entertainment, even if we have difficulty latching onto the protagonists and their goals of uncovering the truth.
Mimi Cave’s Kairos
Cave’s staggering use of miniatures and anachronistic period details give Holland a dreamy quality. We can never pinpoint in what period the Prime Video film is set. Is it modern-day? The early 2000s? A place stuck in time? It gets especially confounding when nightmare sequences shift our perspective of Holland’s setting even more. For a while, this is a feature and not a bug, until none of these details go anywhere, with Cave and screenwriter/ executive producer Andrew Sodroski eventually abandoning the meticulously built-up story for a “shocking” twist that admittedly has an effect but doesn’t repurpose its story compellingly. It would’ve been ingenious if Cave decided to go all-in on such a shift in atmosphere. Yet, she only utilizes this part of the movie to surprise the audience that not everything in her film is as it seems.
That’s fine, but I think we all understood this when the director continuously deceives us and, within the film’s diegesis, when Frank suspects that someone is behind his shoulder at all times. Something’s not right, and not everything is as picture-perfect as Nancy believes it is before realizing she never truly knew her husband. It doesn’t take a half-baked twist for us to realize this inextricable fact. Only Pogorzelski’s marvelous compositions keep us moderately engaged, even if its ending completely fumbles the bag.
Does Cave know which genre she wants to register in? Should it be a purely psychological thriller, romantic drama, or full-on slasher movie? These are distinct permutations that Cave establishes separately for the bulk of her runtime, only for them to be haphazardly mixed when Holland reaches its uneventful denouement, wrapping things up in the most anticlimactic—and unsatisfying—way possible for the viewer.
Final Thoughts on Mimi Cave and Andrew Sodroski’s Holland
Thankfully, Kidman’s portrayal of Nancy remains unscathed. When one moves past the garish ADR and stilted performance of its opening scene, how Kidman opens up the character is far more enthralling than her turn in Babygirl. She revels in the darkly funny aspects of her protagonist. This makes her chemistry with Dave more palpable and intriguing, even if Bernal, while decent, regretfully has nothing to work with. The same can be said for Macfadyen, whose post-Succession career has sadly typecast him in paper-thin antagonist roles that aren’t worthy of his on-screen talents. He is a bit more intriguing than Mr. Paradox in Deadpool & Wolverine. Although, that movie was virtually unwatchable compared to how Cave fills in every frame of Holland with as much visual clarity as possible for us to keep watching, even if we may end up not feeling it when the credits ultimately roll…
2/5
Mimi Cave and Andrew Sodroski’s Holland is now streaming via Prime Video!
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