Among the most humane and empathetic of directors, veteran Belgian directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne profile teenage mothers in Liege, Belgium, each of the young women struggling in different ways to adjust to new realities. Focused primarily on four stories, all presented with clarity and distinctive details, the teenage women personalize a diversity of problems. Jessica repeatedly seeks to confront her own young mother who has refused to acknowledge Jessica’s existence. By contrast, fifteen-year-old Ariane can’t shake her mother Nathalie’s insistence that Ariane, her baby Lili, and she live together. Perla faces a different problem due to her own idealistic belief that her baby’s father will surely bond with her and their baby Noé upon his release from juvenile detention. At least Julia has a doting Dylan to share her optimism for baby Mia’s future, endangered, however, by Julia’s previous drug use. “Jeunes Mères” (“Young Mothers”) won the Cannes Film Festival Best Screenplay award for Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. In French with English subtitles, “Young Mothers” is available for digital streaming.
Read my full review on AWFJ.org at: https://awfj.org/blog/2025/05/29/young-mothers-cannes-ff-2025-review-by-diane-carson/
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