Mimi Cave got candid over Holland as a director.
The director was deep in post-production on her 2022 horror debut, Fresh, when she was approached with an intriguing opportunity—directing Holland, with Nicole Kidman as star and producer.
The screenplay by Andrew Sodroski had been floating around since its inclusion on the Black List in 2013, and Cave found herself unable to shake the story.
“The town I grew up in was not too dissimilar from Holland, so I just felt a real kinship with them,” Cave shared, recalling her connection to the Michigan setting and its characters.
Kidman, who plays Nancy Vandergroot, a high school home economics teacher who suspects her optometrist husband, Fred (Matthew Macfadyen), is cheating. Enlisting the help of shop teacher Dave Delgado (Gael García Bernal), she embarks on an investigation, though she has little evidence beyond intuition—keeping audiences guessing about the truth.
Cave made a deliberate choice to set the film in the year 2000 rather than the script’s original contemporary setting.
“The script, when it was written back in 2013, was set at present day, and I chose to set it back to 2000 because it felt to me like some of the themes they were dealing with, in terms of like Dave feeling like an outsider, felt more of that time,” she explained.
The slower pace of technology also added a layer of tension.
“There was a lot of her unfolding everything that happens, to have to go to the library, going to Ask Jeeves or whatever, and it’s a slow dial-up [connection] — the slowness of needing urgent information just added a tension to it that felt fun.”
Although the team initially planned to film the movie’s final scene at Holland, Michigan’s famous Tulip Time parade, logistical challenges led them to Clarksville, Tennessee.
“We really kind of took over the town. I think it ended up fitting better, in a weird way, because the Holland we created was an elevated, more surreal version of Holland, Michigan.”
One of the film’s biggest storytelling challenges was balancing audience uncertainty about Nancy’s suspicions.
“It’s a lot of instinctual choices and consistently checking in with the audience point of view,” Cave said.
“Hopefully, there’s a moment in the movie where you don’t know who to believe and at the moment of the parade, it could go in any which way.”
Working with Kidman was also an experience in itself.
“With her, she’s a dramaturge — really, really sharp. She has studied more scripts than any of us,” Cave noted, explaining how Kidman contributed as both a producer and an actor.
“Before shooting, she’s involved, not in a heavy-handed way, but in a way that’s pinpoint surgical, looking at what could be helpful in the script. As an actress, she’s very interested in what the director wants, so the moment we start shooting, she steps back from the producer role and really allows herself to be caught up in the actual role.”
After premiering Fresh at Sundance, Cave is bringing Holland to SXSW, a festival she believes fits the film’s energy.
“My hope is that the experience of watching this is a fun escape from everyday life, and you can just jump into the movie and let yourself get carried into it and not ask too many questions,” she said. “South By has that fun, irreverent energy to it.”
Audiences won’t have to wait long to dive into Holland, as the film premieres on Prime Video on March 27.
