Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk: From Book to Screen

Image Credit: Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Hot Milk, 2025 via the Guardian

As an avid reader, I'm often skeptical about book to screen adaptations. As the old saying goes, to always “read the book first”, it's evident that projecting a literary gem into a cinematic masterpiece comes with its difficulties - and is not always done well. Having delved into Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel Hot Milk last summer, I was curious to see where the film would lie in the hazy territory of screen adaptation. How could 224 pages of Levy’s eloquent prose be translated into a 92 minute film?

Screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz takes on the challenge of portraying Levy’s novel on screen in her film directorial debut. First shown at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, Hot Milk gilds a star studded cast from the likes of Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw. The film is set in a beautiful Spanish coastal region, framed by deep blue waters and the quiet, untouched beauty of rural European life. Each scene is picture perfect and mirrors my own summer pinterest board. From just the trailer, this had the potential to become my film of the season. 

Image Credit: Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Hot Milk, 2025 via The PictureHouse4

Emma Mackey gives an outstanding performance of Sofia, who is accompanying her unusually ill mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) on a visit to a private Spanish consultant, Dr Gomez. From the first few moments of the film, we see a mother-daughter relationship strained by emotional tension and frustration at Rose’s seemingly feigned symptoms. She is confined to a wheelchair, in constant chronic pain, and in persistent need of her daughter’s assistance. The pair portray the relationship perfectly, sprinkled with humour and the subtlety of motherly love.

Tensions rise as Rose ventures out into the Spanish coast alone whilst her mother receives ‘treatment’. It is here she meets and becomes enthralled by the whimsical and dreamy Ingrid. Like an apparition, Ingrid arrives into Sophia’s life upon a naked horseback, enticing her with a carefree yet lightly sexual attitude. They bond over childhood trauma, deepening their relationship yet simultaneously fracturing the one between Sofia and her mother. In the nature of screenplay, plot detail and in-depth explanations are sparse, and this was a moment where I was glad I had the knowledge of the book to fill in vague details. 

The relationship between Sofia and her mother reaches a breaking point when Sofia returns from a failed visit to reconcile with her father in Athens. Both Mackey and Shaw give an incredible, realistic portrayal of a mother-daughter dynamics characterised by heavy emotion, anger and despair which is at times, difficult to watch. Seeing this performed so perfectly, on screen, championed any picture I could've produced in my own mind. Relationships between characters, in forms of love, sexual desire, and most potently, inward frustration came as a winning factor in this adaptation, and drove the film towards its emotionally intense and mysterious ending. 

Image Credit: Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Hot Milk, 2025 via Elements of Madness

So, was I right to be so skeptical about Hot Milk on the screen? Apparently not. Lenkiewicz takes a novel complex in emotional trauma and familial bonds and perfectly translates it to a visual masterpiece. Framed by the quiet natural beauty of the Mediterranean coast, this adaptation, for me, falls nothing short of what Levy’s original book has to offer. 

Potent with sexual tension, inward frustration, and the sharp sting of a jellyfish, Hot Milk certainly proved that it is possible to translate an intensely emotional story from the page to the cinema screen.