Top films of 2025 in the UK: No. 3 – Young Mothers | film

TThe Dardenne brothers, Luc and Jean-Pierre, have long served as Belgium’s answer to Ken Loach, camping out their filmmaking camp among the most marginalized and forgotten. This usually means obvious myths about teenagers and twenty-somethings living in difficult circumstances: nightmare parents, petty crime, drugs, prison. In a string of films between the mid-1990s and early 2000s, they twice won the Palme d’Or, as well as Best Screenplay and the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for their distinctive brand of naturalistic storytelling, using a mobile, hand-held camera style to handle some seriously dark material. Then there was some fluctuation; Perhaps their success opened up opportunities they couldn’t refuse. They find themselves working with a real-life movie star (Marion Cotillard) and then turn to hot-button issues—radical Islamism in Young Ahmed, illegal immigration in Torre and Lokita—that may not have brought out the best in them.

Well, all of this is a premise to say that Young Mothers sees the Dardennes fully back in their comfort zone, with material and actors who know how to handle it. The subject, as the title suggests, is young women who find themselves pregnant, or with very young children, and who are woefully ill-equipped to deal with the situation. Challenges range from basic baby care techniques—for example, having to be reminded to take one’s phone off the baby’s changing mat—to the emotional storms of rebellious friends, drug addiction, and narcissistic and uncaring parents.

You can imagine the most serious (and difficult to watch) documentary in the world being made from this. But what the Dardennes do have is an almost miraculous ability to make even the most depraved of scenarios — a miserable foster teenager chasing her mother to her crummy job, or an addict waking up in the hospital after an overdose — live and breathe through the sheer power of empathy.

It helps, of course, that the Dardennes are absolute masters at directing young actors, both male and female; No one here misses or perfectly matches the role they are playing. The brothers juggle multiple threads effortlessly, constructing their narratives with such precision that having a bedroom window overlooking the Meuse feels like a moment of major triumph.

Part of what makes Dardenne’s films work so well is the way they use the camera; Almost entirely portable, it’s like an extra person in the room, in the car, or on the street – thus transporting us, the viewers, directly into the scene. It’s a major point of contrast with Loach, who prefers a more classic, coverage-oriented style, where the camera (and we) sit back and watch what happens almost invisibly. Moreover, while the Dardennes don’t employ anything as crude as point-of-view shots, their gait and nervous tension get inside their heroes’ anxious heads with tremendous effectiveness. May it last long.