de facto film reviews 1 star

Holland, the newest Nicole Kidman vehicle, continues the star’s downward trajectory into predictable pap. Set in the tulip-lined streets of Holland, Michigan, the film is a fly-over tourist’s idea of Michigan. This is not a stylistic choice as much as one that comes across as mean spirited. You get lots of shout outs to places, like Frankenmuth and Grand Rapids, as well as such iconic establishments as Zhenders and Zinngerman’s Deli. Yet, it is all meaningless detail in a story that does not use the locations in any meaningful way.

Courtesy Amazon

It does not help that the characters are as thin as rice paper and as interesting as a blank page to a blind person. The director does nothing special with the camera-work, and fails to draw anything of substance from the screenplay. Kidman’s character, a  housewife and mother, is someone you would likely be more creeped out by than want to spend time with, were this not a movie, and even then, it might be your response.
Is this a film about independence and female empowerment? Love? Devotion? Is it a comedy or a drama? The film cannot figure itself out and the tone is all over the place, creating confusion for the audience, which then leads to a lack of investing. Should we care about her husband, whom she does not seem exactly devoted to, or the co-worker, with whom she has been having an emotional affair? The husband and co-worker are both more interesting, yes, but equally as meaningless.
The film does not seem to know what it wants to say. Is this a story, like Unfaithful? Is it going to resemble a Douglas Sirk film, in more than visual aesthetic? It seems the film wants to be all of this and more but does not have the strong vision to guide it toward any certain conclusion. Where it goes, then, becomes a meandering mess that makes less and less sense as time goes on. The fact this is set a year before 9/11 should help the film, and could have been used to explain the nearly 1950s’s feel of the characters and setting, as a comment on innocence about to be lost. Yet, that is not the case.

Courtesy Amazon

Instead, the audience is left with what becomes a mystery without any purpose or rooting value. Does it matter what the truth is? Once unveiled, does it make any sense? Does what follows make sense given what we know of the characters? Do the characters do anything that is not simply convenient for purposes of plot complications? The answer is no, to all of them. This is not just a mess of a film, but one which lacks basic construction. Kidman seems caught in a series of these, at present.
Kidman has of late taken to playing older women who get involved with at least slightly younger men and who then cheat on their husbands but which every film tries to justify simply because “goddess” apparently. In none of these films do you get the sense that the men her characters cheat with are worth time or effort, and you mostly ask yourself why this character would do such a thing to the spouse. Here, the reason is especially sinister and did not need to be, other than for a nearly M.Night Shyamalan level-twist. If we did not see the lover as a complete milquetoast and the husband as a demonic presence, the film might not seem so much a stacking of the deck and perhaps one would not resent the choices the character makes.

Courtesy Amazon

Indeed, those choices are never explained. Her devotion to Holland and its “peculiar” traditions are never given any depth, with those traditions being presented as though its all the place is about. If what you desire is to see a convoluted and ugly mess without sense and which disrespects the audience, look no further. But, mostly, please, do not. This is one of the worst films of the past five years.
Holland is now streaming on Prime Video.