In new drama Hot Milk, the canon of personal relationships disintegrating in suffocating summer heat gains another entry.
The movie follows Sofia (Barbie's Emma Mackey), who's traveled from London to Almería, Spain with her mother Rose (Andor's Fiona Shaw) to see a new consultant for her mother's mysterious and intermittent paraplegia. Rose has used a wheelchair for most of Sofia's life, but the cause of her mobility issues is unknown, and they're enlisting the help of the dubious – and expensive – Dr. Gomez (Vincent Perez) as a last resort.
Sofia and Rose have a strained relationship. If they're in the frame together, they're often facing away from one another, whether that's at an Almerían café or in their stiflingly claustrophobic rental apartment. In front of others, Rose talks over Sofia and answers questions for her, dismissing her daughter's life and choices while simultaneously being wholly dependent on her. We find out that Sofia has taken a break from her anthropology doctorate to accompany her mother to Spain, and her life is defined by the resentment she feels towards her.
Lost in translation
Heading to the beach to escape her mother's overbearing presence, Sofia runs into Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), an enigmatic German seamstress. Sofia immediately becomes enamored with her and a clandestine affair begins between the two.
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Hot Milk is the directorial debut of screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who's previously written screenplays for movies like Disobedience and She Said. The film is based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Deborah Levy (this is the second adaptation of one of her works: 2011's Swimming Home was made into a movie starring Christopher Abbott, but hasn't found UK distribution yet after premiering on the festival circuit last year).
Levy's works are hard to adapt: hazy, sensual, sun-soaked, and heavy with atmosphere. She paints a very specific picture with her words, one that's difficult to replicate in a visual language. After premiering at this year's Berlinale, the movie currently sits at a critics' score of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. Levy is a difficult author to adapt, and this is clearly a film that hasn't worked for a lot of people.
To the limit
While talking to Ingrid, Sofia shares an idea from anthropologist Margaret Mead that life is flexible but elastic, meaning we always go back to where we grew up. Sofia tries to escape her mother by going to visit her estranged father and his new wife and baby in Athens, but doesn't find what she needs there: she quickly realizes that there's no rapport between her and her father, and he assumes she's only there because she wants money. Sofia's main problem is that she's wanted too much by her mother but not enough by her father – or, eventually, by Ingrid.
As the film progresses and begins to peel back the layers of both women, we learn that Ingrid and Rose actually have more in common than perhaps Sofia would like to acknowledge, and she seems doomed to be pursued by unreachable women. Shaw gives a brilliant performance as a woman on the brink, although we never really find out what she's on the brink of. Is her mysterious illness all in her head? Is she really past recovery? She makes Rose as impenetrable to the audience as she is to her daughter.
Levy's prose, heavy with symbolism, is hard to translate to the screen, but the film asks the same questions as the novel: pushed to our limits, what will we do? How will we explode, and where will the shrapnel land?
Hot Milk is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.
