If you’re trying to keep up with Nicole Kidman and her never-ending projects, you’re basically signing up for a second full-time job. There has arguably never been anybody as booked and busy as she is — and this means that incredible projects can be thrown by the wayside.
For every TV show and movie like Babygirl, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Perfect Couple, and most recently, Prime Video‘s Scarpetta, there’s one that has been completely overlooked. Even as I’m writing this, press is coming out for a new Apple TV series, Margo’s Got Money Troubles… something I’d forgotten she was even involved in.
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Holland on HBO Max is ‘wildly unpredictable’ — and unlike any horror movie you’ve streamed this year
Kidman stars as meticulous Nancy Vandergroot, a teacher and homemaker whose picture-perfect life — with her community pillar husband (Matthew Macfadyen) and son (Jude Hill) — in tulip-filled Holland, Michigan, tumbles into a twisted tale.
If that wasn’t creepy enough, Nancy and her friendly colleague (Gael García Bernal) become suspicious of a secret, only to discover nothing in their lives is what it seems.
Holland is a little like The Stepford Wives meets the It’s A Small World ride at Disney’s Magic Kingdom, only with a lot more blood. If you’re a Kidman superfan (aren’t we all?), think her own Stepford wife era mixed with To Die For.
Just the premise of a fake town full of curated egos is scary enough, but when things start to get grisly, you don’t know where to look for the best. Obviously, Kidman’s performance is unmatched, but Cave’s creative direction is what takes Holland to the next level. She’s one of the most exciting new horror directors of the 2020s, but annoyingly, she rarely gets the kudos to match.
Holland ups the horror ante with the much-loved tropes of a frazzled wife, an absent husband, and a kid who’s creepy for unexplainable reasons. Their dysfunctional family unit drives the drama forward, topped off with clogs, böppekaper hats, and a field of tulips.
Sadly, nobody is trying to do a dodgy Dutch accent, but that’s just as well — the feeling of being so out of place in somewhere so familiar is the true scare here. You’ll feel unsettled all the way through watching, but the payoff is more than worth it.
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