Following Justin Anderson's Swimming Home, Rebecca Lenkiewicz's Hot Milk is the second adaptation of a Deborah Levy novel to arrive in 2025. Both movies share a Mediterranean setting, and both feature uptight English-speakers being seduced by an enigmatic and bohemian European woman. They're both frustratingly obtuse. Neither film really nails down what it wants to say, but Hot Milk is the more engaging of the two, thanks largely to an attention-grabbing performance from Fiona Shaw.
Shaw, who is having something of a late career renaissance right now, plays Rose, a 64-year-old Irish woman who has spent the past couple of decades in a state of unexplained paralysis. Seeking a cure, Rose travels with her English-born twentysomething daughter Sofia (Emma Mackey) to Spain, where she hopes Dr. Gomez (Vincent Perez) can succeed where other medical professionals have failed.
But does Rose actually want to get cured? She views life as something to be endured rather than embraced, and we suspect she may have embraced endurance. Plus, it's a way of keeping her daughter around. Is Rose even really paralysed or is it all an elaborate scheme to generate sympathy? We begin to lean towards the latter suggestion when Rose appears to flinch as a cat brushes against her legs under an outdoor dining table.
While her mother is being treated in the clinic, Sofia takes advantage of a few free hours each day to spend time away from her burdensome mother. She encounters Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), a free-spirited German woman who rides around the island on a horse like the wife of a plantation owner. The two enter one of those fast affairs that only lesbians can pull off because both parties possess female intuition and know exactly when their desire becomes mutual. But Ingrid also has an assortment of male lovers, and though Sofia tries to be very European about the arrangement, her English heart is crushed.
Hot Milk's romantic subplot is under-developed and unconvincing. Krieps is suitably ethereal and sophisticated but she's wasted in a role that never allows her to be anything more than a one-dimensional object of desire, the lesbian version of a manic pixie dream girl. When Ingrid launches into a monologue concerning a childhood incident, it's a moment that feels unearned, as we haven't gotten to know enough about this woman for such a revelation to land with sufficient impact.
Mackey is given more to do in the central role but we never learn much about who Sofia really is. All we really know about her is that she's sick of taking care of her mother, but Mackey's performance silently suggests other ambiguous troubles.
Lenkiewicz's storytelling often prompts us to ask if what we're watching is real or a fantasy of Sofia's mind. I'm not sure that's intentional, and I suspect it's simply down to some messy editing. When Sofia takes a detour to visit her estranged father in Greece, the abruptness of the editing makes us think we're watching her imagine how such an encounter might play out, so it comes as a shock when we finally realise that she has actually travelled to Greece.
What keeps us engaged in an otherwise messy and directionless film is Shaw's performance as Rose. As an Irishman it's rare that I see an Irish character in a non-Irish film that I recognise as accurately Irish. Shaw nails down a certain type of Irish person of her generation, one who lived through hardship and resents anyone else enjoying life, even their own children. She's the sort of woman who can't deliver a compliment without adding a cutting disclaimer. When Gomez asks Rose to write a list of her enemies, she doesn't bat an eyelid at such a suggestion. Rather than pretending she doesn't have any foes, she seems to relish the idea that someone might indulge her pettiness. It might be the most relatably Irish piece of characterisation I've ever seen.
Directed by: Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Starring: Emma Mackey, Fiona Shaw, Vicky Krieps, Vincent Perez, Patsy Ferran
