‘Holland’ Review: A Kitschy Dutch-Themed Midwestern Town Plays Backdrop to a Twisty Mystery

variety.com:

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Holland, Mi., is one of those high-concept American towns where nothing feels real. Modeled after someone’s fantasy of an 18th-century Dutch village, it has windmills and tulip fields and ersatz canal houses.

To Nancy Vandergroot (Nicole Kidman), it seems quaint, but to our eyes, it’s pure kitsch — which is a mode Kidman does well, channeling the tone of “To Die For” and “The Stepford Wives” in Mimi Cave’s mysterious thriller.

Like those movies, “Holland” embeds us largely in its protagonist’s point of view, which isn’t an entirely credible place to spend two hours, but a fun one for those who like teetering in that is-she-crazy-or-is-she-the-only-sane-person-here zone.

Since it’s Cave behind the camera, your imagination will likely leap to explanations a lot more interesting than where Andrew Sodroski’s Black Listed script winds up. (Fun fact: At one point, “Holland” was intended to be Errol Morris’ fiction debut, with Naomi Watts in the lead.) The film marks Cave’s follow-up to “Fresh,” a ghoulish relationship satire — and a pioneering example of the emerging gaslighting genre — in which a charming dork (Sebastian Stan) subjects his dates to a rare form of torture (make that medium rare).