Dardenne brothers’ film follows four teen mothers in Belgian shelter

The Dardenne brothers’ new film, Young Mothers, follows four teenage mothers living in a state-run maternity shelter in Belgium, according to a review by Times critic Alissa Wilkinson. Working in their familiar observational, naturalistic style but shifting away from a single-story structure, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne trace the lives of Jessica, Julie, Perla and Ariane as they cook, clean, do laundry and learn parenting skills while contending with histories of abuse, poverty, addiction and abandonment.

The shelter is depicted as plain and administrative but clean, organized and sometimes the most secure home these girls have known. The review summarizes each arc: Jessica (Babette Verbeek) seeks contact with her biological mother Morgane (India Hair); Julie (Elsa Houben) is a recovering addict training for a hair-salon job and preparing to marry her daughter’s father, Dylan (Jef Jacobs), while fearing relapse; Perla (Lucie Laruelle) struggles with depression after a reunited partner shows little interest; and Ariane (Janaïna Halloy Fokan) decides to give her baby up for adoption while her mother, Nathalie (Christelle Cornil), offers to raise the child.

Wilkinson notes that the ensemble approach reduces some of the suspense found in the Dardennes’ earlier work but allows a tenderness to emerge, and she points to Naïma (Samia Hilmi), a former resident who moves out with a job and an apartment, as a glimpse of what the shelter’s program might yield.

Key Topics

Culture, Dardenne Brothers, Young Mothers, Belgium, Maternity Shelter, Alissa Wilkinson