Hot Milk review
The uneasiness of Deborah Levy’s novel Hot Milk, adapted for the big screen here by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, is captured in one of the film’s opening scenes: the perpetual anxiety-inducing bark of a dog that has been chained to the wall. So much so that Sofia (Emma Mackay), the story’s anti-heroine, threatens its owner at knife-point to set it free. We learn that this impulsive move is fairly characteristic of Sofia, consistently striving for her own liberty whilst caring for her ailing and over-demanding mother Rose (Fiona Shaw). They have come to the Spanish coastal town of Almera to cure Rose’s paralysis, a partially self-diagnosed condition which leaves her unable to walk, and leaves Sofia at her constant beck and call. Rose has placed her trust in a specialist clinic run by Dr Gomez (Vincent Perez), who initially instructs Rose to write down a list of all her enemies, perfectly playing into her permanent sense of waspish lamentation.
The relationship between Sofia and Rose is excellently needly. Sofia takes subtle steps to manufacture her own coolness and distance, addressing her as Rose, not mother, and frequently ignoring her calls while she is off exploring. In return, Rose never shies away from an active put-down of her daughter, describing her as a “failed and delayed student” and chipperly pointing out that Sofia failed her driving practical and theory on four occasions. There’s always a hint that Sofia is one sense-of-humour-failure away from levelling Rose as an attention-seeking hypochondriac: Mackay’s early scenes bare a mask of worn-down resentment.
This is until she meets Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), first seen dreamily gliding past on horseback just before Sofia has a painful encounter with a jellyfish. Her attention drawn (“Do many people ride horses on the beach?”), they enter into a romance that is both erotically charged and highly tender. The vulnerability displayed by Mackay and Krieps is a testament to the emotional depth of their performances, particularly Mackay. It is a fascinating affair. Ingrid seems relatively untethered, and doesn’t desire to be pinned down, something that irks Sofia’s jealousy, but also brings about an intense longing. However, when Ingrid discloses a deeply buried childhood trauma, the situational parallels between her lover and her mother become uncomfortably clear for Sofia.
Fiona Shaw’s casting as Rose is one of the film’s greatest strengths, sharply encapsulating the dual meanings of pitiful. Her sobbing breakdowns and genuine fear about her physical state invoke sympathy, yet she deliberately whittles away at Rose’s psyche and identity almost as a force of habit. And, crucially, she does not provide any motherly comfort after Sofia embarks on a demoralising trip to visit her estranged Greek father (who, with a much younger partner and brand-new baby, seems content to assign Sofia to a former existence).
When discussing her doctoral studies in anthropology to Ingrid, Sofia quotes a cultural anthropologist on the subject of nature vs nurture, accounting “Life is flexible but elastic”, in that you always end up going back to what you grew up with. To her dismay and eventual despair, this rings true, leading to a climax that, while not lacking in melodrama, accords with the forceful, uninhibited sensibilities of the original novel. Lenkiewicz has delivered a faithful and fulfilling adaptation.