Hot Milk
Description
An unsettling mother/daughter story set over a sultry Spanish summer, this sexy and mysterious star-studded drama beautifully adapts Deborah Levy’s acclaimed novel. Sofia (Sex Education’s breakout star, Emma Mackey) has long been the caretaker of her demanding wheelchair-bound mother, Rose (Fiona Shaw), but a trip to Spain to seek out the latest potential cure might just give the budding young adult the chance to break out of her confines amid the sun and sand. Drawn to a free-spirited German seamstress (Phantom Thread’s Vicky Krieps) staying nearby, Sofia has her first taste of erotic pleasure, but has to contend with a neighbor’s chained-up dog, the beach’s stinging jellyfish, and her meddlesome mom on the way to her own self-realization. Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida) in her directing debut explores these interpersonal relationships with a taut tension as Sofia’s summer of awakening takes on darker shades. —Rod Armstrong
Biographies
Rebecca Lenkiewicz began her career as an actor before transitioning to writing plays for theater and BBC Radio. She made her television writing debut with episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2008), and she worked on Steve McQueen’s Small Axe (2020). She collaborated with director Pawel Pawlikowski on the screenplay for Ida (2013), winner of a Best Foreign Language Oscar®. Among her feature screenplays are Disobedience (2017), Collette (2018), Servants (2020), She Said (2022), and The Salt Path (2024). Hot Milk is her directorial debut.