How do you free yourself from someone to whom you have devoted your entire life? Hot Milk, the film adaptation of Deborah Levy’s novel of the same name, shows how difficult that process can be. Sofia has ended up in a clinic on the Spanish coast with her mother Rose, in a last-ditch attempt to find an explanation for the paralysis that has confined her mother to a wheelchair for decades. But the one who is truly paralysed is Sofia herself: by years of care, duty and guilt. Her rebellion starts small – a cigarette with a dress – and grows into a passionate quest for independence, desire and loss.  

Director Rebecca Lenkiewicz (known as co-writer of Ida and The Salt Path) captures that inner awakening in tangible images of sunlight, dust, deserted landscapes and sizzling silences. Fiona Shaw is a revelation as the sarcastic, vulnerable Rose. She makes her character someone who gets under your skin and touches your heart. In every scene with her, the film returns to something urgent – something that lingers, even when you are back outside in the bright light.