Sour Milk (2023)

The film is about the relationship of a mother and son after they have reunited after 10 years.

Sandra (in her 60s) (Külli Palmsaar) lives alone in a small village in the middle of nowhere in Estonia. One day she gets an unexpected call from her son Ivar (Pääru Oja), who is asking her to pick him up. On the drive to the house the air is filled with awkwardness as they don’t know how to interact after 10 years apart. Sandra’s blinker on her car is broken and Ivar promises to fix it, but Sandra doesn’t believe any of his promises. Back at the house, they try to reconnect but Ivar notices Sandra has moved on as she cleaned the house from any traces of him. Ivar is quickly slipping into his old habits leaving a mess all around him. He reveals he has a kid he wants to get part time custody of. But since Sandra didn’t hear from him in 10 years, all that seems too much to process at once. He keeps promising her things that sound like a new beginning for their family. After they reconnect during an awkward dance scene it seems like they are on the right path. But after Sandra walks in to a social worker visiting their house, she hears the lies Ivar has been telling. Finding out he is planning to leave her after all. Sandra confronts him and realizes he is the same untrustworthy person he was 10 years ago and that she doesn’t believe he will ever get his son, or that he even should. Leaving her only with an option to ask him to leave as she feels betrayed. The next morning she wakes up to an empty house. And as she gathers his things to throw away she sees that Ivar has fixed the blinker on her car, planting a seed of doubt into her head.

Keywords: mother | mother-son relationship | son | reuniting | View all »