20 plus degrees. its flaming hot in the desert in Spain. Sofia stays with her sick mother in a small town, so that her mother might finally seek help for her rare bone disease. Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s version of hot milk, which premiered in competition at the 75th Berlinale, is a heady, sun-drenched adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel. The film marks Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut, though she is no stranger to storytelling, having made her name as a dramatist and screenwriter (Ida, She Said). With Hot Milk, she takes on the challenge of translating Levy’s story into a visual experience feels like a dreamlike sensuality.
Sofia (Emma Mackey), a young anthropologist with a drifting sense of self, arrives in a small coastal town with her mother, Rose (Fiona Shaw), who is seeking treatment for a mysterious and possibly psychosomatic bone disease. The tension between them is immediate. Rose is acerbic, demanding, and prone to lashing out, while Sofia oscillates between dutiful daughter and quietly simmering rebellion. the dynamics are quickly clear. rose sets the tone. Sofia does what she feels like she has to do. As Rose undergoes experimental treatment from the enigmatic Dr. Gomez (Vincent Perez), Sofia is left to navigate between obligation and liberation.
well, This is where Hot Milk truly revels in its atmosphere: the oppressive heat, the shots of sunburned skin, the languid movements of bodies in and out of water. It’s a film steeped in sensuality, which is heightened when Sofia encounters Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), an impulsive woman who seems to exist outside the rules of Sofia’s life. Their relationship unfolds quite quickly. Ingrid, riding horseback along the beach, wrapped in a Romani-style headscarf, becomes some sort of a symbol of Sofia’s burgeoning independence and an enigma she cannot quite grasp.
The mother-daughter dynamic, remains the film’s strongest anchor. Shaw is phenomenal as Rose! prickly, manipulative, and often darkly funny. Her performance prevents the film from floating too far into the realm of sun-drenched abstraction. Mackey, in turn, delivers a layered performance, capturing Sofia’s frustration, desire, and quiet yearning for something beyond her mother’s shadow.
Yet, Hot Milk is not a straightforward coming-of-age story, nor is it a conventional drama about illness. It exists in a more ambiguous space, exploring the blurred boundaries between love and resentment, care and control, freedom and responsibility. At times, this ambiguity threatens to pull the film into a meandering, almost absurdist drift. especially in its final act, where it edges close to surrealism. But this is also what makes it compelling.
Lenkiewicz handles the adaptation with more success than recent attempts at Levy’s work (Swimming Home comes to mind). She understands that Levy’s narratives are not about neat resolutions but rather the slow, simmering and unraveling of emotions. Some viewers may find the film’s elliptical structure frustrating or its moodiness indulgent. But for those willing to surrender to its hypnotic pull, hot milk offers a richly textured exploration of mother-daughter bonds, desire, and the disorienting beauty of breaking free.