Filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne capture how life finds a way, even under extremely difficult circumstances. Their film “Newborn” addresses teenage motherhood, vulnerability, caregiving, and responsibility for others through the stories of five teenagers living in a foster home and striving to build a better life for themselves and their children. Their approach runs counter to contemporary culture, arguing that human dignity is guaranteed when every life has a genuine opportunity to flourish.

Jessica (Barbette Verbeek) is about to give birth and feels the need to meet her biological mother to understand why she gave her up for adoption at birth. Upon discovering that Morgane (India Hair) was also a teenage mother, Jessica recognizes in her a reflection of her own story: solitary motherhood, marked by unacknowledged fatherhood and the social stigma associated with being a single mother. This recognition creates an unexpected connection between past and present. Although Jessica wants to take care of her daughter, Alba, the imminence of childbirth awakens in her the fear that she won’t be able to handle that responsibility alone.

Perla (Lucie Laruelle) is the mother of Noé. She gave birth just a few weeks ago, hoping to start a family with her boyfriend, Robin (Gunter Duret). Now, he refuses to continue the relationship and also refuses to take responsibility for being a father. Of African descent, Perla carries the burden of her absent mother’s alcoholism and the fear of repeating that same pattern in her own life. For her, raising a child without the father’s presence means having an incomplete family, a wound to her sense of belonging and emotional stability. Her gaze turns to her sister Angèle (Joely Mbundo), who represents the ideal life she longs for: a woman with a husband, two children, and a small business—a symbol of balance and social legitimacy.

Julie (Elsa Houben) and Dylan (Jef Jacobs) are former drug addicts and parents to Mia, a baby girl just a few months old. Although she’s trying to rebuild her life and has started an internship as a hairdresser, Julie lives in constant fear of relapse, a fear that is soon confirmed. Scarred by the abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of her stepfather, Julie struggles to maintain a new identity, free from pain and drug dependency. Dylan, now rehabilitated, becomes her main support. He wants to marry her and raise their daughter together, in an attempt to give little Mia the stable and loving home they both never had.

Ariane (Janaina Halloy) is a fifteen-year-old mother to Lily and has decided to entrust her to an adoptive family. She doesn’t want her daughter to repeat the cycle of extreme poverty or expose her to the domestic violence she herself suffered, circumstances that led social services to remove her from her family before Lily’s birth. Her decision is driven by a deep desire to offer her daughter a more stable and loving life. Ariane aspires to continue her studies—she has passed her high school entrance exams—and dreams of a future where she can be a nurse or a pilot. Unlike her mother (Christelle Cornill), the teenager cares for her daughter with exemplary tenderness and responsibility, convinced that entrusting her daughter to an adoptive family is not abandoning her, but rather the highest form of love, allowing her to have a family and the opportunities that were denied her.

Naima (Samia Hilmi) has a brief but pivotal presence in the film. Her story carries great symbolic weight. She feels no shame in being a single mother and is on the verge of fulfilling her dream of working as a train attendant. Her Muslim family, who initially rejected her because of her pregnancy, has finally accepted her, allowing her to rebuild broken relationships. Furthermore, the young woman has achieved enough stability to rent a small apartment and begin a new chapter with her daughter. In the eyes of her colleagues, her story embodies a possibility of hope: proof that, even in vulnerable circumstances, it is possible to find real paths and opportunities to develop authentic life projects.

The maternal home, as an ethical territory

The maternity home where teenage mothers live constitutes an ethical space where humanity clings to warmth and the shared struggle to build a better life for themselves and their children. In this place, they are taught to care for and take responsibility for their babies and themselves, without condescending glances or judgment. Through simple daily gestures—feeding, cradling, bathing, holding, or pushing the baby stroller—the young mothers learn that care is a form of ethical attention and recognition that transforms their inner selves, leading them to become the best version of themselves. Small habits become foundational acts of responsibility and commitment, forging the bond with their child and responding to a moral calling that stems from recognizing the fragility of human life and the interdependence that sustains it, in contrast to an individualistic notion of autonomy or one conditioned by convenience and self-interest.

Simple acts show that motherhood cannot be reduced to a biological fact, but rather involves embracing the life of the Other as one’s own and recognizing the intrinsic dignity of people at all stages of life, even in contexts of economic and social determinism. The film suggests that embracing motherhood and caring for life, even in complex circumstances, constitutes a form of resistance to dehumanization and the contemporary culture of death.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne offer a luminous vision of teenage motherhood and the protection of vulnerable life. By showing how adolescent mothers assume their responsibilities and transform existence, the film proposes an interpretation that runs counter to contemporary culture. The film underscores that the ethics of care and affective responsibility are essential for recognizing human dignity and ensuring that every life has unquestionable value and a real opportunity to develop when it is not interrupted. Art without artifice promotes a naturalness that disarms ideology and social logic. Moreover, when the world becomes a difficult place to sustain hope, that is when we most need to believe that good can triumph and to share in the joy of hope and humanity prevailing. This is what the Dardenne brothers’ cinema achieves: without rhetoric, without distorting people or feelings, but rather from an unwavering faith in humanity.

“Why continue filming, if not with the hope that films can awaken love for one’s neighbor in those who watch them? We would like ours to be seen as a face-to-face encounter with the viewers, allowing them to open themselves to the vulnerability of these young mothers and their children. This will enable them to experience a rebirth, a true emotion of tenderness that moves and softens the hardness of hearts,” Luc Dardenne noted in a personal interview published in Scio magazine ^[1] .

The baby strollers—pushed by the mothers and by Dylan, the sole father caring for his son—take on a significance that goes beyond their recognized utilitarian function. Instead, they become carriers of profound meanings and expressions of creative freedom. The mothers learn to nurture a vulnerable life, to accompany it, and to connect with it in a context that is sometimes marked by conflict with a new reality they struggle to accept. In a way, the strollers become ethical mediators that contribute to learning about care, responsibility, and affection.

Bioethical assessment

The film is profoundly inspiring. But this is something that can only be understood by watching it. The title in the Spanish version,  Recién naces  ya (Newborns), refers simultaneously to the new lives arriving in the world and to the young mothers whose existence is radically transformed by motherhood, granting them, in many ways, a second chance to rethink their lives and relationships. This double meaning immediately establishes a bioethical framework within which the film invites reflection on vulnerability, responsibility, and dignity in contexts of early motherhood and social precarity.

The vulnerability of young mothers and adverse material conditions cannot, however, justify the lack of protection or the elimination of a human life. Life, even in the vulnerability of its origin, deserves to be recognized and supported. From a bioethical perspective, this requires a two-pronged approach: on the one hand, the unconditional affirmation of the value of life; on the other, an active commitment to social justice that allows it to be sustainable. It is not a matter of opposing ethics and politics, but of recognizing that the defense of life is only complete when access to the resources, support, and structures that enable its dignified development is guaranteed ^[2] . In this sense, ethical responsibility also extends to the realm of institutions. Public policies are responsible for providing the means to support birth and the recognition of life, offering mothers and children the necessary conditions to pursue their life projects in freedom and dignity. Only a moral economy, focused on the fair and responsible use of common goods and not on abstract macroeconomic indicators, can respond to the harm and suffering inflicted on the vulnerable and restore dignity where the system renders them invisible and marginalized ^[3] . In this space, the Dardenne camera becomes an ally.

Technical specifications

Original title: Jeunes mères

Year: 2025

Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Country: Belgium

Duration: 105 min.

Amparo Aygües  . Master’s Degree in Bioethics from the Catholic University of Valencia. Member of the Bioethics Observatory, Catholic University of Valencia.