“Holland” and the aesthetics of the US suburbs at the cinema

In films like Holland, the premise with which the viewer starts is that nothing is as it seems. Beneath the veneer of comfort and tranquility of the town, there must necessarily be a secret, which then forms the basis of the story’s intrigue, ultimately shattering the protagonists' beliefs and sense of security, as they slowly emerge from their own deception. However, the film written and directed by Mimi Cave, returning to Prime Video after debuting in 2022 with Fresh, has something unusual: its resolution does not concern the place that gives the film its title, but rather the protagonist’s personal sphere. When faced with such operations, it is usually the entire house of cards that collapses, revealing a backstage full of scandals and secrets. This time, however, it is simply the existence of Nancy, played by Nicole Kidman, that falls apart, leaving the idyllic aura of Holland, Michigan, intact. A solution that overturns what cinema often teaches us: the need to pay attention not only to the private lives of the main characters but also to their surroundings. Usually, it is a mask worn by an entire city, a town, a village, or even just a neighborhood, hiding silent dynamics that influence the (extra)ordinary daily lives of its inhabitants. It is therefore intriguing to see where Mimi Cave’s Holland leads, despite a final débâcle that is not due to disregarding the genre’s rules but rather to a faltering pace that does not help the viewer. Nicole Kidman was a fitting choice for the protagonist’s role—she has lived in improbable towns and societies with imposed rules multiple times on the big screen, from the impeccable world of The Stepford Wives to the auteur claustrophobia of Lars Von Trier’s Dogville.

The first title is a remake of the 1975 film adaptation The Stepford Wives, based on the novel of the same name by Ira Levin and directed by Frank Oz in 2004. Kidman plays Joanna, a TV executive and producer who escapes a danger that leads her to relocate to Stepford, Connecticut, where she soon realizes that all the town’s women are almost identical. In Dogville, the situation is not as enchanting. Though there is an underlying and unsettling enigma, the sense of danger is immediately more apparent, with violence becoming overt after an initial period of semi-quiet. But it is the closed-circuit concept that characterizes a type of film designed to trap the protagonist, leaving the audience to hope for an escape. A comforting setting where, little by little, the signs begin to emerge. The same deception that Wanda Maximoff created in the Disney+ series WandaVision, except that, in that case, the trick was primarily for herself.

Sometimes, the decision to set these environments is simply to create a strong contrast with the themes or narratives of the films. Other times, it is to bring to the surface issues that we too often leave simmering beneath, only to explode later. Among the emblematic cases of small towns or famous American suburbs used as a backdrop for dark stories is Blue Velvet, which opens with the iconic white picket fence and red roses, symbols of the peace and tranquility of an American reality that, in truth, only masks the rot of a story that David Lynch unravels through sex, violence, and nightclubs—much like the diners and apple pies of Twin Peaks. On a metaphorical level, the most recent case is Don’t Worry Darling, which has been compared to The Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman, this time starring Florence Pugh in a 1950s setting, playing the quintessential wife and housewife—an era frequently chosen for such narratives.

Trapped in a routine that begins to crack, director Olivia Wilde, with a screenplay by Katie Silberman, builds a mystery around protagonist Alice/Florence Pugh, concealing abuse and coercion. A captivity in which the struggle for gender equality is entirely erased, and which the character must reclaim, anesthetized and suddenly thrown back into real life, realizing that everything she is experiencing is a sexist and misogynistic farce. In Don’t Worry Darling, the confinement is imposed by others, while in the case of The Village by M. Night Shyamalan, it is the community itself that has taken action to protect itself, leading some residents to question what is real or not in their isolated and pastoral enclave. It is certainly a deception, especially for the protagonist Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), but it is also the choice of an alternative life—one that not everyone may have agreed to participate in.

If one were to find a title closest to Mimi Cave’s Holland, it would be George Clooney’s Suburbicon, released in 2017 and written by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring Matt Damon and Julianne Moore. In the film with Nicole Kidman, it is revealed that the protagonist’s life is actually quite happy, if not for the unspeakable secret of her husband (played by Matthew Macfadyen), with the town ultimately being a place of peace where, however, it is unclear what is real or not. The same happens in Suburbicon. It is still evident that the kindness and excessive conviviality of the American suburb must necessarily conceal a distortion—the same one Tim Burton made visible through the presence of his Edward Scissorhands in 1970s American suburbia. In Clooney’s film, this transforms Damon’s everyday man into a father who would do anything to protect his family, but even more so his own interests. While the film portrays a tacit and creeping xenophobia as the foundation of its story, we see protagonist Gardner Lodge/Matt Damon act for his own benefit, pulling the strings of a Hitchcockian-inspired narrative. The point remains the same: never trust what appears to be perfect. There might be a conspiracy—or even a murder—lurking beneath.