In a hot European beach resort a woman in a wheelchair seeks a crank cure for her condition with her resentful daughter along in tow. Hot Milk is a hothouse drama, a sketch of a nasty little co-dependent relationship. Will the worm turn, and if so, when?
Is mother really crippled, or is this part of her way of controlling her adult daughter? Does daughter realise her mother is possibly putting it all on? As mother Rose (Fiona Shaw), with sulking Sofia (Emma Mackey) perpetually on call, consults a dubious doctor on one of the Spanish Costas, something appears to be brewing but debut director Rebecca Lenkiewicz isn’t telling us what.
“What do you think about your mother’s condition?” the doctor asks Sofia early on. “Rose hasn’t been able to walk since I was four,” Sofia replies, which isn’t at all answering the question but says something about their asymmetric relationship (and the guarded nature of the film).
Later, Sofia tells the doctor that to pay for the revolutionary treatment – a talking cure, pretty much – they have sold “our house”. “My house,” her mother instantly corrects. It’s all always about Rose.
But with Rose spending her day being ministered to by the attentive Dr Gomez (“Just Gomez, please,” he says tellingly), Sofia is suddenly at a loose end. Released from her duties, she starts having tentative adventures. A dalliance with a doctor at the beach who tends to her when she gets stung by jellyfish. Something more significant with Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), a bohemian artist first spotted galloping along the strand on horseback. More significant from Sofia’s point of view anyway. Relationships are all weird powerplays to her.
Lenkiewicz wrote Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida – another one about wonky relationships – but here she’s working off Deborah Levy’s novel, which adds psychological weight to what is, at bottom, a soap-opera plot.
Lenkiewicz does it as melodrama with the volume turned right down. The wind, the light, the emptiness of a resort that is just out of season, Lenkiewicz conjures an atmosphere of detached stillness, reflected in the performances.
No surprises that Shaw can play a blatherskite Irishwoman with a weird hinterland. She played a similar character in the TV show Bad Sisters – Irish actresses of a certain age tend to be offered garrulous-washerwoman roles. Shaw attacks it in her own way, though, the twinkle in her eye possibly the glint of a stiletto. It’s fascinating to watch.
Watching beautiful Emma Mackey has its own compensations. But there is more going on than just Mackey’s looks. Sofia is in as much distress as her mother, though she’s less adept at hiding it. There’s also a bad dad in Sofia’s background – with a new family in Greece.
Mackey plays Sofia as a young woman thirsting for intimate connection, whoever, wherever, whatever. Every tiny swing of her hair, sway of her breasts and pout of lip suggests it. Mackey puts on a riveting display of restrained wantonness and director Lenkiewicz plays up to her performance by giving her the full male gaze.
Krieps seems too starry for the little role she has, but then all the smaller characters are played by actors who are probably too big. Lenkiewicz shot it all in Spain in a couple of handfuls of days, which is presumably how she was able to fill the minor roles with the likes of Krieps, French star Vincent Perez as Gomez, and Patsy Ferran (never off the stage in London’s West End) as his daughter.
Really, it’s the story of an older woman throwing a permanent controlled tantrum and the daughter who has given up everything to service it. Lenkiewicz ups the power towards the end, when early suspicions about where this might all be heading start to crystallise. The shock reveals, when they come, are possibly not that big a shock. This is one that’s more about the journey than the destination.
Hot Milk – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
