# Hot Milk (film)
**Hot Milk** is a 2025 drama film directed by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, adapted from Deborah Levy's 2016 novel of the same name, in which a daughter accompanying her wheelchair-using mother to a Spanish clinic for an unorthodox cure begins to break free of her mother's control. It is Lenkiewicz's feature directorial debut, and it premiered in [Competition](https://www.edgepedia.org/competition) at the 75th [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) on 14 February 2025.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/) • [2](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/14/hot-milk-review-fiona-shaw-deborah-levy-berlin-film-festival)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / screenwriter | Rebecca Lenkiewicz, her first feature as director; screenplay co-credited to Deborah Levy on some listings[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/) • [3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hot-milk/) |
| Source | Adaptation of Deborah Levy's 2016 novel *Hot Milk*, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize[4](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hot-milk-review-2025) |
| Lead cast | Emma Mackey (Sofia), Fiona Shaw (Rose), Vicky Krieps (Ingrid), Vincent Perez (Dr. Gómez), Patsy Ferran (Nurse Julieta)[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) |
| Premiere | Competition, 75th Berlinale, 14 February 2025[2](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/14/hot-milk-review-fiona-shaw-deborah-levy-berlin-film-festival) |
| Release | US limited theatrical 27 June 2025 (IFC Films); UK 4 July 2025 (MUBI); streaming 29 July 2025[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) • [1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/) |
| Reception | 39% Tomatometer (70 reviews) and 46% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes; Metascore 55 on Metacritic (12 reviews)[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) • [3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hot-milk/) |
| Production | UK-Greece co-production, 92 minutes; produced by Bonnie Productions, Film4, HanWay Films, Head Gear Films, and Heretic[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Sofia ([Emma Mackey](https://www.edgepedia.org/emma-mackey)) has been the primary carer for her mother Rose ([Fiona Shaw](https://www.edgepedia.org/fiona-shaw)), who uses a wheelchair because of a mysterious illness whose cause is unknown; the pair travel from London to the seaside town of Almería in southern Spain to consult Dr. Gómez ([Vincent Perez](https://www.edgepedia.org/vincent-perez)), an enigmatic healer running an unorthodox private clinic, as a last-ditch attempt to get Rose walking again.[6](https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/drama-movies/sun-sea-and-strained-relationships-andors-fiona-shaw-and-barbies-emma-mackey-play-a-mother-and-daughter-on-the-brink-in-new-drama-hot-milk/) • [7](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/rebecca-lenkiewicz-fiona-shaw-hot-milk)
On the beach, Sofia meets Ingrid ([Vicky Krieps](https://www.edgepedia.org/vicky-krieps)), a free-spirited German seamstress, and the two begin a passionate affair that awakens Sofia's repressed dreams of an independent life.[6](https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/drama-movies/sun-sea-and-strained-relationships-andors-fiona-shaw-and-barbies-emma-mackey-play-a-mother-and-daughter-on-the-brink-in-new-drama-hot-milk/) • [8](https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/hot-milk) Sofia's growing freedom becomes too much for her controlling mother, and the relationship, built on affection, guilt, and resentment, tightens toward a dramatic conclusion.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) Sofia also visits her estranged father and his new family in Athens, where she finds no rapport and is assumed to have come for money.[6](https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/drama-movies/sun-sea-and-strained-relationships-andors-fiona-shaw-and-barbies-emma-mackey-play-a-mother-and-daughter-on-the-brink-in-new-drama-hot-milk/)
The film keeps Rose's condition deliberately unresolved. In an interview, Lenkiewicz said the production researched functional neurological disorder (FND), in which a person cannot walk although the cause is not physiological, and worked with a consultant, Chris Simeon, on the balance between reality and non-reality; she also said the edit with Mark Towns made the film progressively more mysterious.[9](https://www.flickermagazine.art/post/nothing-hurts-like-care-hot-milk-review-q-a)
## Production
Producer Christine Langan was recommended the novel by executive producer Ellie Wood and approached Lenkiewicz to adapt it in 2018, after Lenkiewicz had finished work on *Disobedience*; the press kit describes the project as female-led from Levy through the producers and director.[10](https://www.berlinale.de/en/press/press-material/presskit-download-action.html?file=Wettbewerb%2FAlle_Filme%2F202501269_en_1_Hot_Milk.pdf) An early production listing from September 2022 named [Jessie Buckley](https://www.edgepedia.org/jessie-buckley) as Sofia alongside Vicky Krieps and Fiona Shaw; the completed film stars Emma Mackey in the role.[11](https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/d932181d-927d-45e4-954a-274a41f72bcf/ISSUE1579.pdf) • [5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk)
The film is a United Kingdom and Greece co-production, produced by Kate Glover, Giorgos Karnavas, and Christine Langan for Bonnie Productions, Film4, HanWay Films, Head Gear Films, and Heretic, with Christopher Blauvelt as cinematographer, Mark Towns as editor, and a score by Matthew Herbert.[1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/) According to the Polish database Filmweb, shooting ran from July to 11 August 2023, during the WGA and [SAG-AFTRA](https://www.edgepedia.org/sag-aftra) strikes.[12](https://www.filmweb.pl/film/S%C5%82one%2Blato-2025-10042362) The Greek cash rebate and Hellenic Film Center support were cited by the producers as important to financing the independent feature.[13](https://filmcommission.gr/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/HFC_CATALOGUE_2025_FALL_WEB.pdf)
## Release
*Hot Milk* premiered in the Berlinale Competition section on 14 February 2025.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/14/hot-milk-review-fiona-shaw-deborah-levy-berlin-film-festival) [HanWay Films](https://www.edgepedia.org/hanway-films) handled international sales, with IFC Films taking North American rights and MUBI releasing in the UK, Ireland, and additional territories including Germany, Austria, India, Italy, Latin America, and Turkey; Metropolitan Filmexport released it in France on 28 May 2025.[14](https://www.screendaily.com/features/berlin-2025-screens-guide-to-the-competition-titles/5201604.article) • [15](https://www.imdb.com/news/ni65081900/) • [1](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/) The film opened in limited US theaters on 27 June 2025 through IFC Films and in UK and Irish cinemas on 4 July 2025, with streaming beginning 29 July 2025.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) • [2](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/14/hot-milk-review-fiona-shaw-deborah-levy-berlin-film-festival) Its US gross was $70.3K.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk)
## Reception
Critical response was mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 39% Tomatometer from 70 reviews and a 46% Popcornmeter audience score; its critics consensus describes a film lacking narrative momentum and clarity.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) On Metacritic it scored 55 out of 100 based on 12 critic reviews, categorized as mixed or average, with 3 positive, 9 mixed, and 0 negative reviews, and a user score of 4.9.[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hot-milk/)
Reviewers repeatedly singled out the performances while faulting the storytelling. Danny Leigh in the *Financial Times* gave it 4/5, calling it built around two daredevil performances from Fiona Shaw and Emma Mackey, jagged and dreamlike at once.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk) The Guardian's Berlin review praised the fierce sinew of Shaw's performance as grounding a film otherwise in danger of drifting into a sea of ambiguity.[2](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/14/hot-milk-review-fiona-shaw-deborah-levy-berlin-film-festival) Wendy Ide in *Screen Daily* wrote that the film lacks some of the lush, heady symbolism of the book but that Mackey impresses as a woman driven to distraction by the neediness and manipulation of those around her.[16](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/hot-milk-review-emma-mackey-anchors-uneven-adaptation-of-deborah-levy-novel/5202018.article) Negative notes included *The Hollywood Reporter*'s view that the film is dragged down by inertia and an approach too intellectual to give space to emotion, and *Variety*'s judgment that it lacks a tangible sense of vicariously experiencing Sofia's evolution.[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hot-milk/) The most positive review collected by Metacritic, from The Film Stage, scored it 91 and called it a rare dramatization of maternal trauma with zest and humor.[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hot-milk/)
Nell Minow's review for RogerEbert.com described the film as dreamlike, meditative, and ambiguous, with elliptical dialogue, inserts of apparently archival anthropological images, and a spare score, and noted that its ending leaves open what is real and what is imagined.[17](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hot-milk-emma-mackay-film-review-2025) Several critics connected the film's difficulties to its source: Time Out called it a loyal but lifeless adaptation that prioritizes fidelity to Levy's fragmentary, fever-dream novel over cinematic reimagining.[4](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hot-milk-review-2025)
## References
1. [Hot Milk, Cineuropa](https://cineuropa.org/en/film/472707/)
2. [Hot Milk review, The Guardian (14 February 2025)](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/14/hot-milk-review-fiona-shaw-deborah-levy-berlin-film-festival)
3. [Hot Milk Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/hot-milk/)
4. [Hot Milk review, Time Out (24 June 2025)](https://www.timeout.com/movies/hot-milk-review-2025)
5. [Hot Milk, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hot_milk)
6. [Sun, sea, and strained relationships, GamesRadar (4 July 2025)](https://www.gamesradar.com/entertainment/drama-movies/sun-sea-and-strained-relationships-andors-fiona-shaw-and-barbies-emma-mackey-play-a-mother-and-daughter-on-the-brink-in-new-drama-hot-milk/)
7. [Rebecca Lenkiewicz and Fiona Shaw on Hot Milk, BFI (9 July 2025)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/interviews/rebecca-lenkiewicz-fiona-shaw-hot-milk)
8. [Hot Milk (15), Barbican](https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/hot-milk)
9. [Nothing Hurts like Care: Hot Milk Review & Q&A, Flicker Magazine](https://www.flickermagazine.art/post/nothing-hurts-like-care-hot-milk-review-q-a)
10. [Hot Milk press kit, Berlinale](https://www.berlinale.de/en/press/press-material/presskit-download-action.html?file=Wettbewerb%2FAlle_Filme%2F202501269_en_1_Hot_Milk.pdf)
11. [HOT MILK (MUBI [FEATURE]) / September 2022, production listing](https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/d932181d-927d-45e4-954a-274a41f72bcf/ISSUE1579.pdf)
12. [Słone lato (Hot Milk), Filmweb](https://www.filmweb.pl/film/S%C5%82one%2Blato-2025-10042362)
13. [Hellenic Film Commission Catalogue, Fall 2025](https://filmcommission.gr/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/HFC_CATALOGUE_2025_FALL_WEB.pdf)
14. [Berlin 2025: Screen's guide to the Competition titles, Screen Daily](https://www.screendaily.com/features/berlin-2025-screens-guide-to-the-competition-titles/5201604.article)
15. [Mubi acquires additional territories for 'Hot Milk', Screen Daily via IMDb news (21 January 2025)](https://www.imdb.com/news/ni65081900/)
16. ['Hot Milk' review, Screen Daily (14 February 2025)](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/hot-milk-review-emma-mackey-anchors-uneven-adaptation-of-deborah-levy-novel/5202018.article)
17. [Hot Milk movie review & film summary, RogerEbert.com (27 June 2025)](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hot-milk-emma-mackay-film-review-2025)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on novels, novellas, and short fiction › Films based on contemporary literary fiction › Drama and romance adaptations*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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