Sour Milk (La mala leche)

Nani has just become a mother and feels like her life no longer belongs to her: she can’t sleep, is going through an identity crisis, and is obsessed with a coworker fifteen years her junior. Determined to regain control of her life, she’ll put her relationship, her desires, and all the expectations associated with motherhood to the test. An irreverent and fiercely honest comedy about motherhood, desire, and the midlife crisis, featuring Henar Álvarez’s sharp wit and generational voice.

Nani has just given birth, and her life has been turned upside down. She’s breastfeeding because she’s fascinated by the miracle of waking up one day with a killer cleavage, and she’s sick and tired of guys still being such prudes, incapable of handling even a period or a squirt of milk.

Her boyfriend, Néstor, loves her, but she feels like she’s drowning in diapers, breast pumps, and nursing bras. As if that weren’t enough, she’s going through an identity crisis. Does she want to keep being that cultured woman who worshipped Almodóvar and David Lynch? Or is she tired of pretending to be sophisticated, and all her body craves is to feel young and desired again, and to listen to that caveman voice—hormonal or not—screaming at her to go out and cause a ruckus?

A screenwriter for a TV channel, Nani is sick and tired of putting up with the men who censor her ideas. Pseudo-intellectuals, drama queens, pseudo-artists… men who use the same cultural repertoire to sweet-talk you and, while they’re at it, try to get you into bed. So she decides to obsess over Gonzalo, a twenty-two-year-old coworker: a built-in closet with gym-toned abs and the brain of a fish, whom she stalks on Instagram while fueling her fantasy.

But Gonzalo isn’t the only thing keeping her up at night. Her hypochondria has spiraled out of control to delusional extremes: a pain in her butt is enough to convince her she has terminal colon cancer. Néstor insists she’s exaggerating, but she’s already imagining herself saying goodbye to the world. And if she’s going to die at any moment, what better excuse to start living exactly as she pleases?

Determined to up the ante, she takes things a step further with Gonzalo. After a visit to the Prado where he displays a cultural understanding as deep as a brick—a detail that, inexplicably, really turns Nani on—they end up at his place. The sex is quick because his parents are about to return, but it’s enough to restore something she thought she’d lost: desire. She feels sexy again. She comes again, just like in the movies. And she discovers that she’s still so much more than just a new mom.

Now officially the office cougar, Nani is having a secret affair with Gonzalo while comparing herself to Madonna, Britney Spears, or her aunt Salomé. Although half the world reminds her that boyfriends like Néstor don’t come along every day, her friends teach her how to use Telegram’s secret chat feature and fuel the affair. Nani is tired of conforming to the dictates of femininity and has no intention whatsoever of giving up Gonzalo.

But life has a nasty habit of getting serious. Her paranoia about cancer returns with a vengeance, and when it’s time for a colonoscopy, the person by her side holding her hand is—of course—Néstor. During the procedure, Nani stares at the screen while it feels like they’re playing a game of Mario Kart inside her butt, and a nurse asks her, with the utmost calm, to relax. In the end, the doctor delivers the verdict: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her.

Knowing she’s not going to die changes everything. When Gonzalo, head over heels in love, proposes that he give up everything for her, Nani realizes that the adventure has already served its purpose. She breaks up with him and returns to Néstor—not because she’s learned to be an exemplary woman, but because, at last, she’s choosing the life she truly wants again. A life in which there’s still room for passion.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Henar Álvarez is a writer, screenwriter, comedian, and broadcaster, considered one of the most influential and recognizable voices in feminist comedy in Spain. Her career spans television, radio, literature, and content creation. She has worked as a screenwriter on programs such as Hoy por Hoy (Cadena SER) and hosted the segment FéminaCine on the television show Likes, which analyzed female stereotypes in the history of cinema. She is also the creator and host of Al cielo con ella, RTVE’s interview and comedy show that has cemented her status as one of the most influential broadcasters of her generation.

Her work La mala leche, illustrated by Ana Müschel, is a punk, feminist, irreverent, and brutally funny graphic novel about motherhood, desire, and the identity crisis after turning thirty. It’s a story that shatters the clichés associated with motherhood and, with fierce humor and without apology, challenges the expectations that society continues to impose on women. A provocative, contemporary graphic novel with an unmistakable voice of its own, whose narrative power and biting comedic tone make it ideal material for an audiovisual adaptation.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Feature Film, TV Movie.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.