Nicole Kidman's artistry is best reason to see Prime Video's set-in-Michigan 'Holland'

If you're a Michigander, the fact that "Holland" is set — and was partly shot — in the west Michigan city known for its tulip festival is reason enough to watch it, right?

After all, the darkly funny, suspense-laden thriller, which delves into the hidden side of suburban life in Holland, does offer a few picturesque glimpses of the place that Nicole Kidman’s character describes as “just perfect.”

Look, there’s the famous De Zwaan windmill! And the lush fields of tulips around it! And … well, that’s about it, aside from some exterior shots of other locations. Although the production spent a few days at the real deal, most of the filming was done in Tennessee, with Clarksville, a city northwest of Nashville, doubling for Holland in scenes that depict the annual Tulip Time parade.

“Holland,” which arrives Thursday on Amazon Prime Video, isn’t very Holland-specific with its storyline, either. There’s no exploration of the town’s heritage, just nods to its quaintness. Take away the wooden shoes, Dutch costumes and last names like Vandergroot and it could be unfolding in Any Suburb with a Seamy Underbelly, U.S.A

So why should someone in Michigan, or anywhere else, care about the movie? Because it’s a chance to marvel at the hardest-working actress in show business and, arguably, the most dedicated to her craft. A round of applause, please, for Nicole Kidman, who is taking more chances and risking more failure by portraying complicated women than perhaps a dozen of her peers combined.

Kidman has been beyond busy in recent years with an impressive array of roles, from the sexually unfulfilled corporate executive of  2024's “Babygirl” to Lucille Ball in 2021's “Being the Ricardos” to a Fox News-era Gretchen Carlson in 2019's “Bombshell.” Outside the cinematic arena, she has become the reigning monarch of top-quality streaming series with roles in HBO’s “Big Little Lies” and “The Undoing,” Hulu's “Nine Perfect Strangers,” Prime Video's “Expats” and Netflix's “The Perfect Couple.”

As an A-list celebrity who's married to country music star Keith Urban, Kidman likely could wait around indefinitely to choose new roles and coast on her legacy of past commercial and artistic successes. Her accumulated honors include one Oscar, two Emmys, five Golden Globes, one SAG award, one BAFTA and a life achievement award from the American Film Institute.

At 57, an age when top actresses are often limited to supporting roles or stick to their comfort zone, Kidman is still tackling new challenges and going outside any boxes that Hollywood attempts to contain her career inside.

Like the formidable actresses of the old studio system — Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and the two Hepburns, Katherine and Audrey — Kidman is a workhorse and a show horse who puts in the long hours and cooperates with the publicity machine. Yet she is fearless about experimenting with content that doesn't conform to a celebrity image.

She has chosen roles with racy adult content like “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Babygirl’ and roles where she is disturbed and difficult to understand like “To Die For” and “Destroyer.” For every nearly perfect spectacle she has done like “Moulin Rouge!,” she has endured commercial flops like “Bewitched” because, hey, a workhorse has got to work.

“Holland” has received a number of negative reviews and ranks as a majority splat on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet Kidman gives nothing less than her best as she explores the yearnings and flaws behind her character's placid existence.

She plays Nancy Vandergroot, a home economics teacher at Holland High School who has left behind a past that she vaguely says made her feel afraid and confused in favor of a safe and secure life as the wife of Fred Vandergroot (the always exceptional Matthew Macfadyen of "Succession" fame). He's a local eye doctor with an air of gee-whiz amiability and a passion for model trains that he runs on an elaborate diorama big enough to fill a garage.

The Vandergroots and their son, Harry (Jude Hill), are living the middle-class dream until a missing earring leads Nancy to suspect that Fred may be cheating on her. Enlisting the help of her empathetic teacher friend Dave (Gael Garcia Bernal), Nancy begins unraveling clues that will take her on a journey of suspicion, temptation and frustration. At one point, she becomes so embroiled in the tension of her search for answers that she takes it out on the meatloaf she is preparing by using her bare hands to fling off the ketchup she has dumped distractedly on top.

The details of what happens next aren’t as important as the fact that “Holland” fits into the familiar category of films about suburbs that are more twisted than they seem. There is a pinch here of Alfred Hitchcock, the director who made so-called normalcy seem so ominous in classics like 1943's “Shadow of a Doubt," about a favorite uncle who may be concealing an alternate identity, and 1960's “Psycho,” the ultimate creep-out about what’s behind the ordinary façade.

Yet “Holland” actually leans closer to the weirdness of David Lynch, whose death in January was mourned with tributes to his skewed brilliance in the movie “Blue Velvet” and the game-changing TV series “Twin Peaks,” and the dark humor of the Coen brothers, who reached the pinnacle of mixing daffy and devious in 1996's “Fargo.” There are some Lynchian (and Coenic?) aspects to the story arc, such as a vivid scene where Kidman is forced to use a wooden shoe — a symbol of what is old-fashioned and charming about her home — as a weapon.

Ultimately, watching Kidman’s conflicting emotions emerge as her world threatens to fall apart is the saving grace of “Holland.” If you like films that rip the veneer off social norms and pressures, there are many first-class choices out there: “Pleasantville,” “Ordinary People,” “The Truman Show,” “Poltergeist” or any Douglas Sirk movie, to name a few. “Holland” is less compelling, but even it feels like an upgrade from coach to business class because of Kidman's presence.

Matched in talent and commitment by Macfadyen (his Fred somewhat resembles a Tom Wambsgans from "Succession") and Bernal, who does what he can with a thin subplot on the hate he faces as an immigrant, Kidman goes all out in capturing the compromises that Nancy has made as a woman. She has traded individuality for a sense of community, honesty for the easier option of smoothing things over and, perhaps, real happiness for the facsimile of it.

Kidman is almost always dazzling. The De Zwaan Windmill, a landmark of Holland, was added to the national register of historic places in 2018. Kidman, the driving force of "Holland," has one important thing in common with the De Zwaan: She deserves to be declared a national treasure.

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

'Holland'

Rated R; bloody violence, language, sexuality

1 hour, 48 minutes

Available Thursday on Prime Video