Hot Milk’s title recalls the mammary bond between mother and child – a bond, in the case of Rose (Shaw) and Sofia (Mackey), that’s fast curdling. Wheelchair-bound from a mysterious (and possibly psychosomatic) condition, Rose relies entirely on twentysomething daughter Sofia, who has put her own life, including her graduate studies in anthropology, on hold to try to find a cure for Rose. That’s why the pair have arrived in coastal Spain, having mortgaged their London house to finance a trip to an experimental doctor named Gomez (Perez) who may or may not be a quack.
Given its source material, Deborah Levy’s largely interior novel (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2016), it’s not surprising Hot Milk presents onscreen as literary-minded. (First-time feature director Rebecca Lenkiewicz is herself a writer first, having previously scripted She Said, Disobedience, and Ida.) These characters spend a lot of time in their heads, and even when they are moving with purpose in a direction, there is something driftless in how scenes unfurl and wash into the next.
Rose, Sofia, and, eventually, Ingrid (Krieps), an older German woman with whom Sofia falls in love, are each fascinating characters in their own right, and they share a history of family traumas that have shaped them. (Ironically, Rose is Sofia’s particular trauma.) However, distinctly drawn though these characters may be, and compellingly portrayed by all three actresses, they are in dire need of a stronger plot. Glacially paced at only 92 minutes, Hot Milk’s initially seductive languor begins to give way to a febrile sludginess, especially as Sofia becomes more agitated – over her mother’s lack of improvement, and over her affair with Sofia, which moves in fits and starts.
Mackey saves Hot Milk from arty tedium. (She couldn’t save Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile from silliness, but she was certainly the best thing about it.) A startling beauty who radiates both intelligence and a teenager-like surliness, Mackey is Hot Milk’s main point of interest and its stable anchor. She makes a meal of the scraps meted out about Sofia’s backstory, her inner thoughts, and motivations – which is what makes the film’s final moments so rankling. Poised at the precipice of something actually happening, Lenkiewicz perversely pulls away, denying her lead and the audience the clarity of an actual conclusion. That sort of thing may fly in a novel, but onscreen it’s more apt to induce a groan.
This article appears in June 27 • 2025.
