Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut, an adaption of Deborah Levy’s novel ‘Hot Milk’ feels oddly and unnecessarily elliptical, particularly coming from the writer of interesting and nuanced dramas ‘Ida’ and ‘Collette’. It takes place in Almeria in Spain where sixty-four-year-old woman Rose (Shaw) is undergoing treatment at a clinic to cure her paralysis, which may be psychosomatic, under Dr Gomez (Perez). Her sullen daughter Sofia (Mackey) a resentful twentysomething anthropology student, reluctantly taking a break, is there with Rose as her caregiver. Sofia’s irritation at the familial duties imposed on her are aggravated from the jellyfish stings she is prone to getting. Things look up for Sofia when she meets Ingrid (Krieps) a free-spirited German woman and they begin sleeping together. Despite a promising setup and a capable cast, the film feels inert and unfocussed, alternating between longueurs and jarring emotional outbursts. Mackey gets some mileage out of Sofia’s simmering resentment but Shaw, normally so good at gnawing annoyingness, feels underpowered. Si Bell and Christopher Blauvelt’s photography is drab and flat, although that could be deliberate to underline the atmosphere of torpor.

David Willoughby

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