After earning an Oscar nomination for penning the screenplay for 2022’s #MeToo thriller She Said, it’s almost time for Rebecca Lenkiewicz to take the reins for the first time. Her directorial debut, Hot Milk, an adaptation of Deborah Levy‘s 2016 novel of the same name, will arrive in theaters this summer on June 27 courtesy of IFC Films after making a run at the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. Boasting a strong cast headlined by the trio of Fiona Shaw, Emma Mackey, and Vicky Krieps, the film is billed as a deep and emotional exploration of maternal connections, the elusiveness of freedom, and the desires that exist around those concepts. Before it hits the big screen, Collider can exclusively preview the film with a new image and a conversation with the first-time director exploring the complex relationships between these women that will be tested in the scorching heat of the Spanish summer.

Hot Milk revolves around the journey of Rose (Shaw) and her daughter Sofia (Mackey), as they head to the town of Almería in search of a cure to the mother’s mysterious ailment. Their hope lies in the enigmatic healer with a sketchy track record named Gómez (Vincent Perez), who may hold the key to saving Rose from the paralysis that has now forced her to use a wheelchair. However, as her controlling mother undergoes treatment in the seaside town, Sofia acts on her yearnings for freedom and is pulled in by the magnetic charms of the free-spirited traveler Ingrid (Krieps). Our exclusive image teases their passionate fling, as they lie together on the sand, enjoying each other’s company under the hot sun. As things heat up between them, so does a tense argument between Sofia and Rose over co-dependency. Years of bitterness finally boil to the surface and threaten to tear apart the few threads that hold them together in this tense mother-daughter drama, but the simmering summer romance might be an even more destructive trap for Sofia as she seeks liberation.

Keeping with the book, the film was a co-production between the U.K. and Greece, with Academy Award nominee Christine Langan, who was most recently involved with Masterpiece‘s Miss Austen, attached as a producer. Executive producers, meanwhile, include Farhana Bhula, Ollie Madden, and Daniel Battsek for Film4. Langan was integral to getting Lenkiewicz involved in the project, as her recommendation ultimately helped the first-time director discover a deep connection to the novel. Speaking to Collider‘s Samantha Coley via email, Lenkiewicz expressed how the film was born from her desire to bring to life a “very female vision” of the characters that respected Levy‘s intentions and amplified the environments themselves as important forces in the conflicts between the women:

“I didn’t know the novel Hot Milk until Christine Langan asked me to read it and consider adapting it. I read it and loved it, and I felt very connected to the material. It felt visual as well as funny and visceral. The psychology of the three main women fascinated me, and it felt so incredibly female. I felt quite territorial about it. That I could see Sofia walking across the beach. I could feel the heat of Rose and the tension of Ingrid. I wanted to create a very female vision of their lives and their volatile entanglements. Basically, I fell in love with all the characters and wanted to see the film of their story. It’s so passionate, and the heat and landscapes are characters in themselves. And then the various notions of love, a mother’s love, a lover’s desire. How can you be free to love or be loved if your childhood has been affected by trauma?”

Lenkiewicz Looked to a Wide Range of Sources to Imbue ‘Hot Milk’ With Surrealism

Lenkiewicz saw Hot Milk as the perfect opportunity to finally work with Langan after nearly teaming up with the Saving Mr. Banks producer in the past. Her only stipulation was that she wanted to try her hand at directing in addition to writing. She had plenty of experience to pull from working with impressive films helmed by women before, like the aforementioned She Said by Maria Schrader and, more recently, last year’s The Salt Path from Marianne Elliott, and everything lined up for this to be the story she finally calls the shots on herself. “I had been feeling a strong need to direct, and Deborah Levy’s novel is so beautifully complex and human and mysterious,” she continued. “I could taste it and smell it. I really wanted to create the strangeness of it. With all its brilliant inhabitants.“

Hot Milk has been described as a lot of things, as it blends together a family drama and a queer love story with bits of comedy, explosions of violence, and a dose of surrealism. Regarding the latter, the writer-director didn’t go out of her way to find surreal artists to inspire her adaptation, but instead reflected on past impactful works that shaped her creative vision, whether they were experimental short films from the 1940s, musicals from the 1980s, or dreamlike photos playing with the human body and nature. She was especially inspired by films that played with the idea of romance and abstract visual languages, working closely with cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, who had previously contributed to films like May December, Emma., and First Cow, to capture a distinct look for her first feature. She explained:

“Everything we have imbibed is always there and I do remember Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon having a real effect on me years ago. As well as her later films. And actually the Balinese dance sequences could easily echo Deren’s territory. I watched and loved the classic surreal films in the past Un Chien Andalou, Bunuel, Dali and Dziga Vertov’s amazing edits and rhythms. I loved Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven when I was growing up which had a real dreamscape quality to them. So things being real and surreal and the idea of “romance” and what it actually is have always fascinated me. Those huge Hollywood musicals where women form patterns and their dancing legs and tapping feet are almost abstract. Myself and Christopher Blauvelt talked about a visual language. Christopher is the most stunning cinematographer and in our planned shots he created a thing of beauty in the document which we kept as our map. We did look at some of Bill Brandt’s photography in terms of hugely close up faces and bodies in landscapes which were quite surreal, legs on beaches. And we looked at Francesa Woodman’s mysterious images, absent spaces, ghosts. And Nan Goldin’s photos which are so open and raw. Christopher would improvise sometimes with some close shots of arms and hands and faces and that footage became key to some of the more heightened visionary scenes. I wanted any intimacy we showed to feel like forms and shapes making patterns together and Christopher was amazing at working with the actors who felt very held by his work.”

Getting creative visually also required buy-in from the actors, who Lenkiewicz credits for elevating the visual art of the film. Sonically, however, she credits composer Matthew Herbert for setting the tone of Hot Milk. Known for his work as a composer on The Wonder, A Fantastic Woman, Starve Acre, and the episode “Eulogy” from the recently-released seventh season of Black Mirror, he brought the exact kind of surreal and fantastical feel she hoped for. “I saw Matthew’s show where he makes music from the skeleton of a horse, and he resurrects the horse into life with the sounds that the bones and the wind make. It was amazing.” Complete surrealism wasn’t the end goal for the director, but she added that, “the thought was definitely there. I didn’t want literal or a hundred percent clarity.“

Lenkiewicz and Langan Were Very Purposeful in the Casting of ‘Hot Milk’

Lenkiewicz had plenty to say about her key stars, who the film lives and dies by. With each of the three key players, there was a significant level of commitment to making the story work exactly as she hoped. For starters, she says that Shaw was approached by Langan about the role and quickly became one of its biggest cheerleaders throughout the process of funding the project and developing her depiction of Rose. “I went to Fiona’s house feeling very celebratory and we talked character and script,” she told Coley. “This was one of several visits, and Fiona had brilliant input into the script and relationships, and was always interrogating the story in such a brilliant way. It took a good few years to finance the film, and Fiona’s constant support was like rocket fuel. As was her brilliance at interpreting the psychology and creating the physicality of Rose.”

Shaw added some award-worthy firepower to Hot Milk, previously earning Emmy nominations for her work in Killing Eve and Fleabag, though she remains best known for her role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter franchise. Also noteworthy is her work on the stage, earning her a Tony nomination and two Olivier Awards in 1990 and 1994 for her performances in Electra, As You Like It, The Good Person of Szechwan, and Machinal. Her commitment to Lenkiewicz‘s debut translated to the film itself, for which she spent the majority of her time on set in a wheelchair to make her turn as Rose more effective. “Fiona always stayed in the wheelchair while on set, and that really cemented Rose as being there rather than being ‘acted’” the director continued. “Fiona, I had known from her incredible theatre work and her wonderful films, and it was deeply exciting to work with her.“

Krieps, who has appeared in films like Phantom Thread and M. Night Shyamalan‘s Old, was targeted because Lenkiewicz thought she “had that otherness and authenticity that would be great for Ingrid.” Much like Shaw, it was easy to sell the actress on Hot Milk, and after already casting Shaw, the excitement started building for the director. She shared what made Krieps fall in love with the project and what made her such a good partner to work with throughout the process, adding:

“We spoke on the phone, it was quite surreal. Vicky was filming in America… and Vicky simply said yes and that it felt like a poem and that she liked the horse too. Whenever we were having budget nightmares I said we can cut anything but not the horse. I met Vicky for the first time in London months later to talk about the film and we talked about life and process. It felt quite dream-like to have both Vicky and Fiona on board.”

Rounding out the main trio, Mackey‘s addition was inspired by two specific roles that had defined the actress’s career — Maeve Wiley on Sex Education and Emily Brontë in Emily. The former demonstrated the layers of the award-winning star’s abilities as a comedic and dramatic actress as she navigated her relationship with her mother, school life, and running a sex therapy clinic with her on-again, off-again love interest Otis (Asa Butterfield). The latter, meanwhile, took her to new dramatic heights with a biting and bold take on the Wuthering Heights author that earned her awards recognition on the festival circuit. From the moment she met Mackey, Lenkiewicz knew she had found the perfect Sofia, and, over time, she proved to be a perfect fit with the rest of the talented cast:

“I really admired her and felt that she was a very impressive young woman. We offered her Sofia and hoped. I arranged to meet Emma in London and talk. I saw Emma get out of her cab and I felt very strongly this is it, this is Sofia. We walked into this French cafe, and I was incredibly hopeful and ordered tea, and within five minutes we were both saying let’s do it. I was incredibly touched by all of these incredible actresses. Their leap of faith… I haven’t directed before, but the three knew too that they would be working with each other and that that would be great.”

While these three got the lion’s share of screen time in Hot Milk, the director also felt the need to highlight Patsy Ferran, who she described as “a huge Deborah Levy fan,” and “the only authentic Spaniard in the film.” She plays Julieta, the enigmatic daughter and nurse to Perez’s eccentric Gómez, bringing a strong resume of her own, including an Olivier Award like Shaw and roles in the recent Mickey 17 and the aforementioned Miss Austen, which Langan executive produced. Lenkiewicz wanted her on board thanks to her excellent stage presence, particularly in her Olivier-nominated performance in the 2023 revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, and for her deep and detailed approach on-set. “Her stage Blanche Dubois knocked me sideways, and it was really wonderful to work with her. Patsy is forensic in her thinking and her work, and is fascinating to watch and so deeply generous.“

Hot Milk will bring this package of powerhouse women to the big screen on June 27.

 

via Collider