‘Young Mothers’ Review: The Dardennes Mine Emotional Trauma and Resilience of Teen Motherhood [B-] Cannes

Belgian brothers in both blood and cinema, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have long been masters of portraying the gritty realities of working-class life in their homeland. Over their distinguished career, the duo has earned two Palme d’Ors and a host of other accolades at the Cannes Film Festival. Their latest project, Young Mothers, premiered as the penultimate entry in the festival’s latest competition lineup, continuing their legacy of socially conscious storytelling. This newest work turns its lens toward the youthful residents of a maternal shelter, offering an intimate, if at times overly theatrical, portrait of resilience amid hardship.

Five young mothers named Jessica, Julie, Perla, Arianne, and Naima share a communal shelter, living alongside a small team of carers who are dedicated to the growth and prosperity of all mothers and babies in residence. In return for performing daily chores and rotating kitchen duties, the girls are offered not only a roof over their heads but also vital skills and emotional support as they navigate the challenges of early motherhood. Each young woman contends with her own set of circumstances and complicated personal relationships, making the shelter both a place of refuge and bubbling tension.

With the exception of Naima, who appears briefly in the first act to announce her departure from the shelter, each of the young mothers receives a relatively equal share of screen time. While their paths occasionally cross in the shared spaces of the shelter, the film mostly follows them in distinct narrative threads. These rotating individual segments gradually reveal the circumstances that led each woman to this moment in her life, offering glimpses of their pasts and uncertainty of their futures. 

We first meet Jessica at a suburban bus stop—the only one among the group still pregnant. Her weary eyes scan the crowd in search of her estranged birth mother. For Jessica, pregnancy has unearthed a lifetime of unanswered questions, chief among them why she was given up, especially now that she feels such a powerful bond with her unborn child. She is not alone in wrestling with maternal trauma. 

Perla speaks with simmering resentment about her late mother, whom she describes as unfit to parent. She recalls, with chilling specificity, the moment her mother drowned her pet canary in a toilet during what still feels like an unended childhood. Arianne, by contrast, maintains regular contact with her mother, though that connection is fraught. It was her mother who insisted she keep the baby, and now she’s determined to prevent her granddaughter from entering foster care—even if that might ultimately be the better option.

Julie’s struggles stem from a different place. Unlike the others, she has a solid support system—her fiancé, Dylan, and the capacity to form a stable family unit. Yet beneath that promise lies a more fragile reality. Julie is a recovering addict, and the mounting stress of new motherhood brings with it powerful waves of temptation. Despite her best intentions, she fears the looming possibility of relapse. 

Each of the young women has a distinct story, some more layered than others, which naturally makes certain plotlines more compelling. While the film strives to give equal attention to each, the limited runtime restricts the depth of development that any single narrative can achieve. The interwoven stories are easy to follow, and naturally, you begin to root for each of them, but the constant shifting between their arcs often feels like being pulled away just as you’re settling in. Trimming one character’s storyline might have allowed the remaining narratives more room to breathe and, in turn, more emotional impact.

The ensemble is made up of young relative newcomers, but the performances are uneven. Some actors deliver the subtle, restrained work that the screen demands, while others veer into more theatrical territory, at times feeling overly rehearsed or even soap opera-esque. In keeping with the Dardenne brothers’ signature style, the film avoids visual flashiness. The cinematography adopts a documentarian approach, and the production design is sparse, all in service of naturalism. As a result, the weight of the film rests heavily on the actors’ shoulders. While the performances don’t entirely derail the story, the inconsistencies are noticeable and occasionally distracting.

While the title makes clear that these girls are, indeed, young, the full weight of just how young doesn’t truly register until we crawl towards the film’s conclusion. In a quietly devastating scene, Arianne writes a letter to her infant daughter, Lili, in pink gel pen, intending to have it given to her by social services when she turns eighteen. In it, Arianne reveals that by the time Lili reads the letter, she will be three years older than her mother is now. The line lands like a punch to the gut, as do the film’s few, piercing reminders that these young women have lost their own childhoods, not only to motherhood, but to the emotional scars they’ve already collected in their short lives.

Young Mothers is a film rooted in empathy and interested in the invisible realities of shouldering adult responsibilities in the wake of adolescence. While the Dardenne brothers maintain their signature approach, their reliance on performance and overstuffing of the film’s narrative occasionally undercut its emotional power. Still, there’s no denying the weight of the subject matter, the sincerity of its approach, and the invitation to witness these young women’s lives by feeling the weight of their choices. 

Grade: B-

This review is from the 2025 Cannes Film Festival where Young Mothers premiered In Competition.