{"id":519970,"date":"2026-01-16T08:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T08:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/519970\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T08:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T08:55:10","slug":"young-mothers-review-dardenne-brothers-extend-compassionate-filmography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/519970\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Young Mothers’ review: Dardenne brothers extend compassionate filmography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now in their early 70s, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have spent their filmmaking careers worrying about the fate of those much younger and less fortunate. Starting with the Belgian brothers\u2019 1996 breakthrough \u201cLa Promesse,\u201d<\/a> about a teenager learning to stand up to his cruel father, their body of work is unmatched in its depiction of young people struggling in the face of poverty or family neglect. Although perhaps not as vaunted now as they were during their stellar run in the late 1990s and early 2000s \u2014 when the spare dramas \u201cRosetta\u201d<\/a> and \u201cL\u2019Enfant\u201d<\/a> both won the Palme d\u2019Or at Cannes \u2014 the Dardennes\u2019 clear-eyed but compassionate portraits remain unique items to be treasured.<\/p>\n

Their latest, \u201cYoung Mothers,\u201d isn\u2019t one of their greatest, but at this point, the brothers largely are competing against their own high standards. And they continue to experiment with their well-established narrative approach, here focusing on an ensemble rather than their usual emphasis on a troubled central figure. But as always, these writers-directors present an unvarnished look at life on the margins, following a group of adolescent mothers, some of them single. The Dardennes may be getting older, but their concern for society\u2019s most fragile hasn\u2019t receded with age.<\/p>\n

The film centers around a shelter in Li\u00e8ge, the Dardennes\u2019 hometown, as their handheld camera observes five teen moms. The characters may live together, but their situations are far from similar. One of the women, Perla (Lucie Laruelle), had planned on getting an abortion, but because she became convinced that her boyfriend Robin (Gunter Duret) loved her, she decided the keep the child. Now that she\u2019s caring for the infant, however, he\u2019s itching to bolt. Julie (Elsa Houben) wants to beat her drug addiction before she can feel secure in her relationship with her baby and her partner Dylan (Jef Jacobs), who had his own battles with substance abuse. And then there\u2019s the pregnant Jessica (Babette Verbeek), determined to track down the woman who gave her up for adoption, seeking some understanding as to why, to her mind, she was abandoned.<\/p>\n

Starting out as documentarians, the Dardenne brothers have long fashioned their social-realist narratives as stripped-down affairs, eschewing music scores and shooting the scenes in long takes with a minimum of fuss. But with \u201cYoung Mothers,\u201d the filmmakers pare back the desperate stakes that often pervade their movies. (Sometimes in the past, a nerve-racking chase sequence would sneak its way into the script.) In their place is a more reflective, though no less engaged tone as these characters, and others, seek financial and emotional stability.<\/p>\n

The Dardennes are masters of making ordinary lives momentous, not by investing them with inflated significance but, rather, by detailing how wrenching everyday existence feels when you\u2019re fighting to survive, especially when operating outside the law. The women of \u201cYoung Mothers\u201d pursue objectives that don\u2019t necessarily lend themselves to high tension. And yet their goals \u2014 getting clean, finding a couple to adopt a newborn \u2014 are just as fraught.<\/p>\n

Perhaps inevitably, this ensemble piece works best in its cumulative impact. With only limited time for each storyline, \u201cYoung Mothers\u201d surveys a cross-section of ills haunting these mothers. Some problems are societal \u2014 lack of money or positive role models, the easy access to drugs \u2014 while others are endemic to the women\u2019s age, at which insecurity and immaturity can be crippling. The protagonists tend to blur a bit, their collective hopes and dreams proving more compelling than any specific thread.<\/p>\n

Which is not to say the performances are undistinguished. In her first significant film role, Laruelle sharply conveys Perla\u2019s fragile mental state as she gradually accepts that her boyfriend has ghosted her. Meanwhile, Verbeek essays a familiar Dardennes type \u2014 the defiantly unsympathetic character in peril \u2014 as Jessica stubbornly forces her way into her mystery mom\u2019s orbit, demanding answers she thinks might give her closure. It\u2019s a grippingly blunt portrayal that Verbeek slyly undercuts by hinting at the vulnerability guiding her dogged quest. (When Jessica finally hears her mother\u2019s explanation, it\u2019s delivered with an offhandedness that\u2019s all the more cutting.)<\/p>\n

Despite their clear affection for these women, the Dardenne brothers never sugarcoat their characters\u2019 unenviable circumstance or latch onto phony bromides to alleviate our anxiety. And yet \u201cYoung Mothers\u201d contains its share of sweetness and light. Beyond celebrating resilience, the film also pays tribute to the social services Belgium provides for at-risk mothers, offering a safety net and sense of community for people with nowhere else to turn. You come to care about the flawed but painfully real protagonists in a Dardennes film, nervous about what will happen to them after the credits roll. In \u201cYoung Mothers,\u201d that concern intensifies because it\u2019s twofold, both for the mothers and for the next generation they\u2019re bringing into this uncertain world.<\/p>\n

‘Young Mothers’<\/p>\n

In French, with subtitles<\/p>\n

Not rated<\/p>\n

Running time:<\/b> 1 hour, 46 minutes<\/p>\n

Playing: <\/b>Opens Friday, Jan. 16 at Laemmle Royal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now in their early 70s, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have spent their filmmaking careers worrying about the fate…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":519971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[231589,5997,231591,1582,276,19919,231588,231587,1020,2961,2252,224,5337,6291,231592,231590,14164,11459,231586,22169],"class_list":{"0":"post-519970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-adolescent-mother","9":"tag-age","10":"tag-babette-verbeek","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-character","14":"tag-dardenne-brother","15":"tag-dardennes","16":"tag-film","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-life","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-other","22":"tag-perla","23":"tag-pregnant-jessica","24":"tag-way","25":"tag-woman","26":"tag-young-mothers","27":"tag-young-people"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115903943367555046","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}