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HT reviewer Arunima Mazumdar picks her favourite read of 2025
A novel about a mother-daughter duo who spend a summer in Almeria in the south of Spain for the mother to undergo dubious treatments at a wellness clinic
British author Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk is a novel that lives inside 25-year-old anthropology student Sofia’s head. A memory, in fact, fragmented, sensory and unreliable. Add to that her mother Rose’s mysterious illness that occupies the liminal space between caretaking and captivity. Together, the mother-daughter duo spends a summer in Almeria in the south of Spain for Rose to undergo dubious treatments at a wellness clinic.
The book came out in 2016 and this year, Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s film adaptation on Mubi made me return to the novel and its introspective detailing of ideas, occurrences, and outbursts.
But here’s the thing about introspective narratives – in words, you find relatability, in an audio-visual set up however, you’re seeing the story being played out and there’s not much room for imagination. Sofia, in the book, talks to you. On screen, her silences dominate the frames. Her dutiful albeit frustrated disposition, played out immaculately by Emma Mackey, has a grave discernment, which creates a fundamentally different experience. Rose, whose revelation in the book is limited to Sofia’s eye, gets a bolder and complex treatment, thanks to veteran actor Fiona Shaw. Her illness and suffering, real or performative, forms a strong backdrop to Sofia’s solitary escapades.
From giving Rose’s mysterious condition a name to altering the ending, the film, in many ways, fails to capture the book’s weight. Its layered symbolism and intellectual scaffolding lose meaning in sight of a more definitive approach. From the relationship that the mother-daughter are struggling to keep to queer desire and even medical gaslighting, all of these themes sort of float in the backdrop and Sofia and Rose’s toxic relationship takes the forefront. Full marks, however, to the atmospheric elements that capture Almeria in all its light and sandy glory.
Arunima Mazumdar is an independent writer. She is @sermoninstone on Twitter and @sermonsinstone on Instagram.
