Hot Milk review – never properly gels | Little White Lies

Hot Milk review – nev­er prop­er­ly gels

02 Jul 2025 / Released: 04 Jul 2025

Two women sitting at outdoor café table under umbrellas, one in dark top, one in white shirt, Spanish flag visible on wall behind.
Two women sitting at outdoor café table under umbrellas, one in dark top, one in white shirt, Spanish flag visible on wall behind.
3

Anticipation.

Vicky Krieps never misses, so in the tank for this one despite a cool initial reception from Berlin.

3

Enjoyment.

It looks good, it sounds good, the actors are giving it their all, and yet… it never properly gels.

3

In Retrospect.

Emma Mackey will likely go very far, and she’s the most memorable thing in this not-quite psychodrama.

Rebec­ca Lenkiewicz adapts Deb­o­rah Levy’s best-sell­ing nov­el, but the result is lacklustre.

This icy psy­chodra­ma of deep famil­ial dis­cord plays out on the pow­dery-hot sands of the Span­ish coast (although the film was shot in Greece) and sees the aston­ish­ing code­pen­dence of a moth­er and daugh­ter come to a vio­lent head. Sofia (Emma Mack­ey) has a per­ma­nent scowl on her face, and it’s easy to see why. She has to tend to her ail­ing moth­er, Rose (Fiona Shaw), who has a strange afflic­tion where she is unable to walk, but has no phys­i­cal issue and, indeed, can occa­sion­al­ly just hop out of her wheel­chair. Hop­ing that a vis­it to a new-age clin­ic will get to the bot­tom of this issue, Rose receives pseu­do­sci­en­tif­ic treat­ment while Sofia hooks up with Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), an extro­vert hand­i­crafter whose flighty demeanour is hid­ing some real­ly dis­mal for­ma­tive traumas.

The film charts Sofia’s increased tor­ment as she is unable to find calm, sim­ple nor­mal­cy in any­one she meets, although she’s not an entire­ly lik­able char­ac­ter her­self to be frank. Dra­mat­i­cal­ly, the film (which is adapt­ed from a 2016 nov­el by Deb­o­rah Levy) pulls in too many dif­fer­ent direc­tions to be tru­ly effec­tive, and direc­tor Lenkiewicz doesn’t do enough to real­ly con­vince that any of these peo­ple deserve a mod­icum of hap­pi­ness. Still, it’s atmos­pher­i­cal­ly shot by Kel­ly Reichardt reg­u­lar, Chris Blau­velt, and boasts an effec­tive­ly glitchy ambi­ent sound­track care of Matthew Herbert.

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