Mimi Cave’s psychological thriller Holland premiered at the 2025 SXSW on March 9 as one of its six headliner films. However, it was the least-rated headliner film from the festival. Since its theatrical release on March 27, 2025, it has continued to receive mixed to negative critical reviews. Halfway into the movie, it’s hard to ascertain whether it’s a comedy or a genuine psychological thriller. The film starred Nicole Kidman as Nancy Vandergroot, a teacher and homemaker who suspects her husband is leading a double life.
English actor Matthew Macfadyen co-starred as Kidman’s husband, Fred Vandergroot. Nancy’s suspicions of her husband lead her to uncover unsettling truths about his activities. Although Holland generally falls into the psychological thriller genre, its numerous plot holes leave more questions than answers. While its story is told from Nancy’s perspective, it does little to provide necessary backstories and follow-up plots for several characters. With a 24% aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes, here are 5 unanswered questions that leave Holland’s plot relatively empty.
What Happened to the Babysitter?
Early in Holland, audiences are introduced to the Vandergroot’s babysitter, Candy Deboer (Rachel Sennott). Nancy confronts Candy, who babysits the Vandergroot’s 13-year-old son, Harry (Jude Hill), about something she stole. Although Candy initially mistakes the accusation for food theft, Candy immediately apologizes and blames it on having a food addiction. However, after Nancy insists Candy stole her earrings, Candy denies ever taking the earrings.
Nancy sends Candy away from babysitting Harry, informing Candy she can only return until she’s ready to be honest and admit the theft. Sending Candy away visibly upsets Harry. However, although Nancy later finds the missing earrings in her button collection, audiences never get closure on what happened to Candy. It’s unknown if Nancy admitted her mistake or if Candy refused to return after the apology. This unresolved arc sets the pace for several other unanswered questions across Holland’s plot.
Who Was Nancy Before She Moved to Holland?
As the film’s protagonist, audiences followed its storyline through the lens of Nicole Kidman‘s Nancy character. Nancy speaks favorably about Holland, Michigan, its community life, and the Tulip Festival. While exalting the “perfect town,” Nancy mentions she’s from a small town and that her husband saved her and brought her to Holland. Although the film initially paints a picture of a perfect town and the Vandergroot family, as the plot unfolds, one cannot help but realize that nothing is known about Nancy or Fred’s past.
After Nancy’s search to expose Fred’s double life reveals something more sinister, the least Holland could do was help connect the dots to Nancy and Fred’s backstory. As a serial killer, why did he “save” Nancy, or what did he save her from? This, and a few other plot holes, makes it hard to take Holland seriously. It is as if the movie’s plot was entirely focused on achieving the half-baked plot twist at the end and forgot to connect the random dots it left throughout its runtime.
How Did Fred Survive After Falling in the Lake?
Movies get away with a lot of things, particularly because they’re founded in “make-believe.” However, Holland took things too far by leaving viewers guessing how Fred managed to survive his fight with Dave Delgado (Gael García Bernal). Fred was visibly stabbed in the abdomen and fell into the late after Dave pulled the knife out as they fought.
With the knife removed, Fred would be bleeding profusely while trying to save himself from drowning. As a serial killer, there’s no denying Fred has the needed physicality to swim while hurting, but losing that much blood would make him struggle. Since he somehow managed to survive the ordeal, the least Holland could do was show a flashback scene showing how he survived.
What Happened to Dave?
Admittedly, Dave’s disappearance might have been intentionally left to viewers’ interpretation, but the number of lingering questions in Holland makes it exhausting. Dave is manipulated into helping Nancy find out about Fred’s double life. After falling in love with Nancy and daring to follow Dave out of town, Dave bites more than he can chew. After he accidentally kills Fred (or so he thought), Dave is consumed with guilt and nightmares. Although he resigns to fate and tells Nancy that they should involve the police, Nancy refuses and struggles the phone with him, accidentally dropping a TV set on Dave’s head, injuring him.
It is the last time viewers see Dave, although a final voiceover from him says he’s feeling lonely and invisible. With Fred’s reappearance, it’s unlikely Fred had anything to do with his disappearance, especially since Fred was more focused on getting his family out of Holland. The most likely scenario is that Dave fled Holland, believing himself to be a killer. Meaning he never saw Fred. Why would a seemingly ordinary teacher abandon his life and flee? He could have proven Fred was a serial killer and helped with the investigation.
How Did Nancy and Harry Return to Their Normal Lives?
A 13-year-old Harry watched as his mother beat his father to death. It’s a trauma that’ll haunt him for a long time. How would Harry live in Holland, a town he’s known for most of his life, without his father? Holland makes a point to show how much time Fred and Harry spent building the model town. What explanation would Nancy give Harry as to why his father was killed?
Since it is evident Nancy never made Fred’s crimes public, how would the residents of Holland take the sudden disappearance of their beloved optometrist? Several lingering questions make it hard for Nancy and Harry to assume a normal life in Holland if Fred’s crimes are never revealed. Would keeping quiet not make Nancy an accomplice to Fred’s serial killings? While it would have best been left to imagination if they left Holland, the film makes a point to reveal at the end that Nancy and Harry plan to simply move on. The big question is how?
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