What Went Wrong with Nicole Kidman's Suspense Thriller Holland (2025)?

Teacher and homemaker Nancy Vandergroot's picture-perfect life with her husband and son in Holland tumbles into a twisted tale. Nancy and her colleague become suspicious of a secret, only to discover nothing in their lives is what it seems.

Aesthetically, this feature screams unsettling horror movie. From the suspiciously perfect homes and housewives to the beautiful tulips, this film had every potential to shock and thrill but instead, the story couldn’t match the visuals. Holland (2025) promises the idea of suspense and thrill but delivers absolutely none of it, this film was lacklustre in its approach and forced the story on us too fast. 

We didn’t get a chance to sympathise with Nancy Vandergroot and her distant husband because the story developed far too quickly. Before we know it, Nancy thinks her husband is a murderer before giving the audience any time to dissect his character. Essentially, my biggest struggle with this feature was the lack of build up, the lack of suspense and the lack of development. Everything happened too quickly and there were a lot of empty moments that weren’t necessary. 

Director Mimi Cave brought us Fresh (2022) and that film displayed everything this film didn’t. It was shocking, it was thrilling, it was utterly suspenseful, the problem with Holland was all in the script. This film was a boring and underdeveloped screenplay that lacked any character development or memorable moments. The story attempted to twist and turn the audience’s perception but realistically, the ‘twist’ was glaringly obvious from the beginning. 

Sometimes filling a cast with known faces won’t save the feature, Gael Garcia Bernal and Matthew Macfadyen were great. They didn’t do a lot but what they did bring to the screen was convincing enough. Nicola Kidman was left the impossible job of carrying this film but she sadly couldn’t convince me, she gave a minimal performance that felt forgettable and honestly too simplistic. I wanted more from her, I needed more emotion and more revelation, until the final 10 minutes she barely gave anything away about her character. 

The story of boring housewives playing detective has been seen time and time again and honestly, I love it. It is a brilliant trope that has a lot of potential but this film didn’t bring anything new to the story aside from the unusual setting of Holland. 

If you fancy watching this film, I would highly recommend you watch Desperate Housewives instead. Desperate Housewives (2004-2012) is one of the greatest dramedy series and gives you plenty of housewives detectives including Bree Vandekamp who Kidman’s character strongly reminded me of. 

Probe Points

★★☆☆☆