The Belgian filmmaking duo has been crafting observant, low-key films for so long that it’s easy to take their work for granted. Their signature style is straightforward: they focus on those society might have overlooked—individuals who face greater struggles than most just to get through a typical week, yet often show their hardship less. The factory worker in Two Days, One Night (played with a flickering sense of urgency by ) who loses her job because of a deal her co-workers struck with their employer; the African immigrants in Tori and Lokita fighting to build lives in a world that rejects them; the 11-year-old boy in The Kid with a Bike, abandoned by his father, who suddenly has no idea where he belongs: The Dardennes don’t specialize in complex plots. They care only about the daily work of survival—the basic task we all must manage, even though for many, the barriers to doing so feel insurmountably high.
The Dardennes’ films have a subtle consistency, which is why they often get lost among flashier movies vying for our attention. But Young Mothers ranks among their finest work—so empathetically understated that its full impact might not hit you until hours after you’ve watched it. Like many of their films, it’s set in Liège, Belgium; it follows four very young women, either pregnant or newly postpartum, all living in a shelter for young single mothers. There, they learn to care for their infants before being reintegrated, as gently as possible, back into society. Ariane (Janaina Halloy Fokan), born into a poor family, wants to place her tiny daughter Lili with adoptive parents—though her mother, tense, angry, and overbearing, tries to force her to keep the child so they can raise her together. Perla (Lucie Laruelle), a charming teenager with a ballerina’s topknot, desperately wants to build a family with her baby’s father, a delinquent boy who has no interest in her or their child. Julie (Elsa Houben) is a recovering drug addict who adores her new baby and has big plans to marry her supportive boyfriend—yet she’s plagued by anxiety about relapsing into addiction. And Jessica (Babette Verbeek), perhaps the most vulnerable of all, longs to meet her birth mother, who gave her up as an infant and seems to want nothing to do with her; she fears she’s trapped in a cycle that will prevent her from bonding with her own child.
A fifth young woman, Naïma (Samia Hilmi), serves as a role model for the group: she’s leaving the shelter to return to school—she loves trains and hopes to become a ticket inspector. (We see her mother, in a headscarf, cradling her grandchild, implying the two have found some peace after past conflict.) Young Mothers is the kind of film that feels both minimal and infinitely detailed at once. What stands out—until you realize it shouldn’t—is how humble these young women’s goals are. Every one of them, even Julie with her reliable partner (played by Jef Jacobs, who has the vibe of a sweet Belgian Ryan Gosling), will need to find work while caring for their babies. And they want to do it as well as possible, starting with tasks that seem simple yet daunting—like cleaning their babies’ belly buttons with alcohol and a cotton swab. Sometimes that feels like more than they can handle, especially since they’re also navigating outside forces beyond their control: their own overbearing, unhelpful (or worse, absent) mothers; neglectful partners or men who refuse to acknowledge their children; aggressive drug dealers with a stake in their former clients. It’s clear why, for these women, even learning to mix a bottle of baby formula can feel like an enormous responsibility they’re not ready for.
To play these characters, the Dardennes cast young women who—while all having some acting experience—possess a quietly moving innocence. Their performances are direct and unpolished. What hits you right away is how impossibly young these characters are. Verbeek’s Jessica, the girl searching for her lost mother, looks the youngest—her face still soft and round with baby fat. Laruelle’s Perla is both tough and fragile; she pushes her baby’s stroller with the confidence of a ballerina, yet crumples when she finally confronts her boyfriend’s callousness. Young Mothers is fiction, but it has a documentary-like feel—you recognize that these women’s emotions and fears are surely playing out somewhere in your own city or town, maybe even your neighborhood. When Ariane meets her baby’s prospective adoptive parents for the first time, she asks them tentatively if either plays an instrument. She’s visibly relieved to learn the potential father plays the saxophone. Then she begs these eager, hopeful parents to make sure her daughter grows up with music in her life.
It’s such a strange, simple, yet completely believable detail: Ariane, of course, wants her daughter to have loving parents, enough food, and a chance to succeed in school. But she also sees music as essential. That’s what’s on her mind as she prepares to hand her daughter to a new family forever. It’s a perfect example of what the Dardennes do best at their peak—examining the texture of everyday lives and finding the golden threads woven beneath.