Hot Milk (15)

The feature directing debut from Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who has adapted Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel, Hot Milk, is full of lush, heady symbolism.

Sofia (Emma Mackey) is a twenty-something failed anthropology student, she’s been caring for her intermittently wheelchair-bound mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) for as long as she can remember. Rose, whose chronic pain migrates around her body as unpredictably as her mercurial moods, leans on her silent, stewing daughter as they embark on a last-ditch treatment attempt at a private clinic in Spain.

As Rose undergoes expensive treatments with the mysterious Dr Gomez (Vincent Perez), an alternative healer,  Sofia escapes from their claustrophobic co-dependency by embarking on a passionate affair with the capricious and emotionally unavailable Ingrid (Vicky Krieps). But it soon becomes clear that Sofia’s apparently liberated new lover has her own troubling family history, and that perhaps Rose and Ingrid have more in common than it first appears.

The result is a complex soup of moods and ideas.  Shaw’s fierce performance gives the film some shape and keeps it grounded. Mackey and Krieps, both formidable performers, give the film their presence and force.