One of the most iconic scenes in film history is about a watermelon. When she changes the first words in “Dirty Dancing” with her crush Johnny (Patrick Swayze), Baby (Jennifer Gray) has just transported one. Her awkward-banal saying, “I wore a watermelon”, became an absolute cult quote. It is therefore certainly no coincidence that Sofia (Emma Macke), the protagonist of “Hot Milk”now also drags a watermelon around when she talks to Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) for the first time and decays. However, the embarrassing fruit dialog is missing, instead it ends up in a corner a short time later.
In her directorial debut, the screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (“She Said”), who was even awarded the European Film Award for her script for “Ida”, not only in this scene with iconic images. But these breaks are the most exciting thing about their novel adaptation. Because apart from very isolated ideas, which often play primarily on the audio track, your kitchen psychological melodrama offers a lot of idle and boredom. The love story between two troubled women off the Spanish coast exhausted in slabs pictures and even more impressive dialogues. In any case, she is pressed to the edge by a mother-daughter drama, which has a little more appeal, but in which almost everything is said early on.
Sofia (Emma Macke) finds the affection at Ingrid (Vicky Krieps) that she lacks in the difficult relationship with her mother.
Sofia (Emma Macke) accompanies her mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) sitting in a wheelchair everywhere since childhood, now also to the Spanish coastal town of Almeria. The elderly woman even pledged her house to be treated by the doctor Gomez (Vincent Perez) working with unconventional methods. Her case is very special: it can run for a short time about once a year, but otherwise she has no feeling in the limbs. Despite the dream weather, the trip is not a pleasure for Sofia. She obviously suffers from the fact that she not only has to take care of her mother all the time, but obviously can never be right.
When the long -term student Sofia the mysterious Ingrid riding along the beach (Vicky Krieps) meets her a new world. Between the sea coast and the nearby desert, a flirt develops in the heat of the Spanish sun that could possibly allow Sofia to avoid the constant control of her mother …
Identity, dependency and missed opportunities
The adaptation of the celebrated novel “Hot Milk” by Deborah Levy, which was published in Germany in 2016 under the title “Hot Milk”, is buttoned up with a few big topics under the Spanish sun: not only for Sofia, for all three women in the center If it is a bit about self -discovery and the question of your own identity – and how you stay dependent on others as long as you have not answered this question. But despite obviously hidden secrets in the past, the search leads too little. It is obvious that Sofia from her controlling mother, who could obviously do much more alone than she is ready, somehow.
With her constant taunts that her daughter has no husband and will never complete her studies in anthropology anyway, yes, you can not even buy the right water in the supermarket, the toxic side of this mother-daughter relationship is repeatedly underlined. To do this, Lenkiewiecz (too) uses obvious (Alb-) dream pictures in which Sofia not only threatens to drown in the sea, but is also tied to her mother's wheelchair. That is plentiful.
Sofia obviously suffers from the fact that she has to spend a lot of time alongside her mother, but is also afraid of having to make it without her.
There are also good ideas in “Hot Milk”. The constant bark of the neighboring dog chained on the roof becomes a strain on the nerves on the soundtrack – as well as energetic telephone rings, the Sofia threatens to bring back into the tightness of its actual routine (and in which you can also see around in the cinema, who has not issued their cell phone again). But such moments of tension give way again too quickly. Even the shimmering heat of Almeria (by the way was turned in Spain, but in Greece) does not really come into play as a stressful factor, but remains largely irrelevant, only the sun -drenched images.
The mother-daughter relationship ends in a strong final scene with a satisfactory bang that finally gives the otherwise cool film loud emotions. This is certainly not possible to say about the second relationship in the center of “Hot Milk”. The holiday flirt between Sofia and Ingrid, of which you hardly learn anything, but which has the vibe of a German dropout, begins promising with an ironic and kitschy scene on the beach, which could also decorate the cover of a lovers from the station bookstore All the faster into powerless monotony and banality.
A disappointing love story
When Sofia sees the apparently so free -spirited woman for the first time, she looks high on horseback like a white knight. Or with her headband like a piratin who takes the holde but bored maid on an adventure. But a short time later, the encounter with the watermelon follows. Of course, that awakens expectations. The “Dirty Dancing” cited here has finally become a cult film because he opposed the male -dominated look in the cinema that was still prevalent at that time and today. The so -called Male Gauze is broken up deliberately, even overturned, in which the baby that initially appears so shy leaves all passivity behind and actively discovered her sexuality and wishes.
With the classic reference and the gender variation of the White Ritter motif, “Hot Milk” seems to be based on it-but that is exhausted again immediately after an intensive secret kiss scene at night. After that, we only get typical (arthouse) romantic unit porridge with jealousy and platitudes. How banal this is is in a dialogue between Ingrid and Sofia about a possible reunion. The British Greek descent is supposed to visit her new girlfriend in Berlin. Then you could take a walk from the Brandenburg Gate to the Checkpoint Charlie, the German, which is so hip and freely spiritual, suggests. In the Berlinale press demonstration, these moments made loud laughter from the local audience. After all, it is the most boring tourist route that you can only imagine for a romantic walk through Berlin-but somehow somehow fitting again for a similarly irrelevant film.
Conclusion: “Hot Milk” plays with interesting cinematic references, but remains pale in the implementation. While the mother-daughter drama offers some effective moments, the romance, which is partly with the number, is poured into clichés and banalities. The few strong audiovisual ideas go down quickly.
We saw “Hot Milk” as part of the Berlinale 2025, where it was shown in the official competition.