Young Mothers
Young Mothers sees the Dardenne brothers return to the observational mode of their early documentary work. Set in a government-run home for teenage mothers on the outskirts of Liège, the film follows four girls whose daily routines are shaped as much by the city’s unhelpful infrastructure as by the challenges of childcare. The camera finds meaning in the seemingly small struggles: strollers left behind in doorways, girls sprinting for buses that rarely appear, the danger of pushing a stroller across roads designed with cars, not people, in mind.
The institution itself is presented without embellishment. Its long corridors and dormitory-like rooms are closer to a boarding school than a refuge. Social workers provide gentle, steady guidance, instructing the young women on how to feed, bathe and soothe their children. They are shown with almost saintlike patience, edging on idealisation. Against the backdrop of widely reported failings in such residential facilities across the world, this portrayal comes across as overly polished, even if the broader depiction of life inside the home retains its realism.
The film’s focus rests on the four mothers, each carrying a different story into teenage parenthood. Jessica (Babette Verbeek) is searching for her birth mother while struggling to raise her own daughter. Ariane (Janaina Halloy Fokan) wrestles with the decision to give her daughter up for adoption, while her own mother sees the baby as a chance for a fresh start. Perla (Lucie Laruelle) imagines her baby will anchor her relationship with her boyfriend, and Julie (Elsa Houben), with stronger prospects and a supportive partner, is nonetheless caught in the undertow of their shared drug addiction. Taken together, the four narratives underline how narrow the margin is between stability and collapse. The juxtaposition between Jessica, trying to parent while still seeking her own biological mother, and Ariane, who views adoption as a chance to break the cycle, points to the weight of generational patterns and quietly poses a larger question: had their mothers been offered the same institutional support, would their own trajectories have been different?
Ultimately, Young Mothers avoids sentimentality, instead foregrounding both the vulnerability and resilience of teenagers pushed into parenthood too early. In doing so, it poses a hopeful alternative: a society where support structures operate as real safety nets, rather than fading into the background as indifferent bureaucracy.
Christina Yang
Young Mothers is released nationwide on 29th August 2025.
Watch the trailer for Young Mothers here:
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