The Dardenne brothers paint “young mothers” with a tender portrait of early motherhood

There are two types of filmmakers: those who we watch expecting to be surprised and those who we already know very well what we will find when we watch them. Brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Two days, one night) are part of the second group. For more than four decades, they have built a recognizable cinema, marked by urgent social themes, the proximity of invisible characters and attention to everyday gestures. In Young motherswinner of the Ecumenical Jury Best Screenplay Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and screened at the 49th São Paulo International Film Festival, the brothers faithfully toe that line in offering a sensitive portrait of early motherhood in a Belgian shelter.

The story focuses on Jessica (Babette Verbeek), Pearl (Lucie Laruelle), Julie (Elsa Houben), Ariane (Janaïna Halloy Fokan) And Naima (Samia Hilmi), five teenagers looking for a better life for themselves and their babies. Everyone faces different challenges: unrequited love, fear of repeating their own mother’s mistakes, absence of the child’s caregiver or family, maternal rejection, or substance abuse. Between difficult decisions and affection, these young women try to learn how to take care of their children even though they have never received the same care.

The camera of Dardenne remains close, agitated, breathing with the characters. It’s a cinema that prefers small expressions to big moral lessons and redemptions. The shelter where they live functions as a rare breathing space, supported by public policies which contrast with the realities of countries still locked in debates on abortion and women’s autonomy. Within this microcosm, tenderness seems to have found its last refuge. The shelter becomes both a home and a school – the home many never had. Every attitude and every movement of these young women is an attempt to break a cycle of absences. The directors’ outlook is understanding, without judgment, recognizing the humanity of the choices that arise from a reality for which they were not prepared.

Which is curious Young mothers is that, despite the poster showing the five teenagers side by side with their babies, in a reunion of sorts, this image never materializes in the plot. It is a promise of communion that the screenplay only suggests, but never fully realizes. The interaction between the young women is minimal, and that is perhaps the film’s only flaw: although the girls live together in this shelter, there are few scenes in which they meet – each of them is too busy dealing with their own private dramas.

In the rare moments when one reaches out to the other, scenes of true tenderness emerge, small demonstrations of attention that captivate by revealing, on screen, a discreet sorority, a glimpse of possible family within the shelter. These are moments that contrast, albeit briefly, with the emotional isolation that marks their trajectories. It is as if the film wanted to reflect not the collective strength of these young women, but the solitude which permeates them, the intimate effort of those who try to learn, little by little, how to make the most important decision of their life: to keep the child or not.

At the end, Young mothers may seem minor in the filmography of Dardennebut by forgoing big twists and turns and continuing to make the social cinema that marked their career, they allow small acts to reveal to us the essential: a simple gift that brings an honest smile, a hug with unshed tears, a sincere apology, a new chance. It’s a delicate, sensitive and close to reality film, which reinforces how the brothers continue to find humanity in invisible places in society.