52 Films by Women Vol 9. 13. Hot Milk (Director: Rebecca Lenkiewicz)
What sort of mother creates
an obligation for her adult daughter? This is a question suggested by Hot Milk, adapted from Deborah Levy’s novel by screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz,
making her feature directorial debut. Casting Fiona Shaw as Rose as a sixty-one
year old woman afflicted by an inability to walk after her Greek husband walked
out on her and Emma Mackey as Sofia, the sullen ‘perpetual student’ daughter
who ‘failed her driving test four times’ (perhaps as a form of protest),
Lenkiewicz locates the film amongst stubborn Irish archetypes, although
Catholicism is never mentioned, unsurprisingly really since it is a
male-oriented religion. (Aren’t they all?) Accompanying her mother to the
Spanish coast, after Rose mortgaged the house to seek a cure, Sofia attracts
the attention of the free-spirited Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), who awakens her to
her own possibilities. By the end of the film, Sofia shows a capacity for
driving and forces her mother to address her infirmity, albeit in an extreme
and callous way.
The set up has the
potential for comedy, but Lenkiewicz (or Levy) hits the mute button. Sofia exhibits
a version of her own mother’s passive aggression. She’s present when she needs
to be but also wanders off silently. We sense that one question troubles her.
With the break-up of her parents’ marriage, did she choose the right parent to
live with? Or why didn’t she have a choice.
While Rose is a
vocal complainant, the film exists in the silences of Sofia, whether on a long
walk or sunbathing. She encounters Ingrid who rides up to her on a horse,
almost as a shimmering apparition. At night, Ingrid throws pebbles at the
window of Sofia’s holiday house and lures her outside. Ingrid’s questions are
selective, but she doesn’t argue with Sofia being sacrificed to the suffering
of her mother, rather provides an alternative to it. Ingrid and Sofia’s
relationship quickly becomes physical.
Dr Gomez (Vincent
Perez), the Head of the Clinic, treats Rose’s illness as psychosomatic, asking
her to stop taking her medicine and asking her to describe the point at which
she lost her mobility. ‘My mother can walk once a year,’ Sofia explains, as if afflicted
by an annual miracle. Rose was a librarian who continued to work after being
unable to walk. Sofia is just as sceptical as Dr Gomez but prefers not to
discuss it.
At no point does
Sofia discuss her relationship with Ingrid to Rose, keeping it a secret. Ingrid
introduces Sofia to Matti (Yann Gael) who becomes Rose’s designated driver,
until Sofia suspects that he and Ingrid might share their own intimacy. Sofia
responds by throwing Ingrid’s phone into the sea. In another scene, some riding
boots end up in the water.
Pictured: Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), Sofia (Emma Mackey), Rose (Fiona Shaw) and Matti (Yann Gael) in a scene from the Spanish-set mother-daughter drama, 'Hot Milk', adapted from Deborah Levy's novel by writer-director Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Still courtesy of Mubi (UK), IFC Films (US)
In narrative terms,
not much actually happens in Hot
Milk. It is a variation on the
genre, ‘the summer where everything changed’. Ingrid gives Sofia the
opportunity to drive and after Rose makes a decision about her treatment – a
fairly predictable one – Sofia shows off her driving acumen.
Sofia never comes
across as a fully rounded character, as if being tethered to her mother had
emptied her consciousness. Except when she decides to visit her father to ‘get
to know him better’. The interlude in Greece is short – Sofia meets her other
family. ‘How was the child bride?’ Rose asks sarcastically upon Sofia’s return,
referring to her ex-husband’s second (or third?) wife.
Lenkiewicz’s and
Levy’s choices give the audience little to chew on. Hot Milk is a film
of half-narratives and stories without satisfying conclusions. The finale
suggests a rupture, a shift in tone. It makes sense. What daughter wouldn’t be
driven to a desperate act especially after imagining that she saw her mother
walking at the beach in the distance? (The audience has to decide whether this
is real.) However, I don’t think the filmmaker earned this moment of desperate
anger. We want to know how Sofia feels about her mother limiting her own life
choices, impacting on Sofia’s independence. However, Sofia is insufficiently
stimulated in the film to reach a point of self-awareness.
Why didn’t Rose
re-marry? We wonder why she didn’t look for a male companion to look after her.
Her level of self-pity is Olympian. Shaw has the film’s strongest role, a woman
dealing with a failure that she refuses to relinquish. Rose constantly switches
between yearning for a cure and relishing her infirmity.
Hot Milk attracted some vociferous dismissals at the
screening I attended. Of the audience of three, one man complained that he had
wasted his afternoon; he could have watched The Phoenician Scheme
instead. A younger woman was similarly unimpressed but explained that she had
seen The Phoenician Scheme and interviewed its star, Benicio Del Toro.
I found the subject relatable, being very aware of the relationship between
self-pity and selfishness. The failure of the film is that it did not give the
audience a better way to discuss its core topic, that parents have no right to
obligate their children to them, through moral blackmail or any other means. The
setting and tone hide the seriousness of the point.
Pictured: Sofia (Emma Mackey) and Rose (Fiona Shaw) in a scene from the mother-daughter drama, 'Hot Milk', adapted from Deborah Levy's novel by writer-director Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Still courtesy of Mubi (UK), IFC Films (US)
Reviewed at Curzon
Victoria, Central London (screen three), Thursday 10 July 2025, 12:00 midday
screening
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