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‘Young Mothers’ Review: Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers Adopt a Wider Focus for Their Most Humane Drama in More Than a Decade
The two-time Palme d'Or-winning pair juggle multiple storylines at once, tracking several pregnant teens who find support at a group home in Liège.
Reteaming with DP Benoit Dervaux and longtime editor Marie-Hélène Dozo, the siblings structure this latest, slightly unwieldy narrative as a series of more or less equally weighted dramas, interweaving the four cases as best they can (with a fifth example, played by Samia Hilmi, whose farewell party offers a ray of hope toward which the others can strive). Ironically, this girl’s maternal instincts are better than her mom’s, who dates abusive men and drinks to extreme, and that sense of responsibility is what drives her to seek out a well-to-do foster couple who swear to teach the child music, offering a potential she never had. That’s just one small example of the countless ways “Young Mothers” celebrates an institution where supportive yet firm social workers (played by Adrienne D’Anna, Mathilde Legrand and Hélène Cattelain) are available around the clock to serve as exactly the kind of role models its residents lacked in their own lives.
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