Have you seen Milkwater yet?
Morgan Ingar, a gay filmmaker has created a masterpiece of exploring the love, loss and complications of starting an LGBTQ family, and in parts, it’s “brutally honest”.
Molly Bernard, who starred in Younger and Transparent, plays Milo, a 20 something who’s moving through life aimlessly and feels even more at a loss when she attends the baby shower of her childhood best friend.
With the need for a sense of purpose, Milo decides, on impulse, that she’s going to become an egg donor and surrogate for an older gay man, Roger, played by Patrick Breen, she becomes friends with after meeting at a late night bar.
But humanity prevails, and she quickly becomes emotionally attached to the baby as her hormones begin to come into play
Ingar herself says, “As a young queer woman who wants to have children some day, I spend a lot of time thinking about the complexities of having children in gay relationships, and how that process often involves people outside the relationship. As the family unit becomes less and less traditional, I think there’s an opportunity to explore both the beauty and the vulnerability in that.”
In the film, as Milo’s pregnancy blooms, so does her friendship with Roger, which makes Roger feel nervous as the agreement is for him to raise the baby on his own
This leads Roger to pull away, leaving Milo feeling alone in dealing with the reality of her decisions.
Ingar says, “I’m also drawn to complex women and complex women having children. I’ve seen many of my incredibly magnetic, brilliant, flawed female friends struggle with how to incorporate their identities into their pregnancies. I’m passionate about examining the different facets and layers of sexuality, womanhood, and femininity, and how those coalesce into the decision to have children or get pregnant. I’m also compelled by the ‘crazy woman’ archetype — I think it’s essential to dig past the stereotype and into the nebulous emotions underneath.”
The Hollywood Reporter gave a glowing review
Saying, “It’s a testament to Ingar’s non-judgmental fondness for her characters that she never glosses over the flaws of either Milo or Roger. Milo is stubbornly blind to the signals, leveraging her pregnancy for friendship benefits, almost to stalker levels; Roger is borderline harsh in reminding her that after waiting so long to be a father, it’s something he needs to do alone, at least for now.”
We can’t wait to see it. Can you?
