A fifth young woman, Naïma (Samia Hilmi), is a role model for all of them: she’s leaving the shelter to go back to school—she loves trains, and she hopes to become a ticket inspector. (We see her mother, in a headscarf, cradling her grandchild, the implication being that the two have found some accord after previous strife.) Young Mothers is one of those movies that manages to feel both spare and infinitely detailed at once. What strikes you—until you realize it shouldn’t strike you—is how modest these young women’s goals are. All of them, even Julie with her solid partner (he’s played by Jef Jacobs, who has the vibe of a sweet Belgian Ryan Gosling), will have to find some sort of work, even as they care for their babies. And they want to do that as best they can, beginning with seemingly simple yet daunting tasks like cleaning their belly buttons with alcohol and a cotton swab. Sometimes that feels like more than they can manage, given that they’re also dealing with outside forces beyond their control: their own bossy, unhelpful—or worse yet, absentee—mothers; negligent partners or guys who refuse to recognize their children at all; aggressive drug dealers with a vested interest in their former clients. You can see why, for these women, even learning to mix up a bottle of baby formula can feel like a huge responsibility they’re not ready for.