Against All Odds

Schweiz, 2011, 93 min, Swiss German

Three girls, three babies – and three years caught somewhere between arrogance and responsibility. Or: the dubious joys of life when you’re not quite an adult but already a mother. Women have children all the time of course, but if, like Sandra, Jasmin and Jennifer, you’re not even eighteen when your belly begins to swell, you tend to attract strange looks. And then, once the baby arrives, you realise that life with a child is a good deal more challenging than you had envisaged it in your pretty-pink adolescent dreams.
Sandra, Jasmine and Jennifer live in the Lucerne hinterland district, in Basel near Thun. They have one thing in common: they were all underage when they fell pregnant and were no more than eighteen years old when they gave birth to Jason, Armando and Tanijsha. As for Sandra, she always knew she’d start a family whilst she was young, she pronounces today self-confidently. Nonetheless, she and her boyfriend Marcel both felt pretty queasy about telling their parents that they would soon be grandparents. In the end, their families took the news relatively calmly; in fact, they are supportive of the young parents and help whenever their grandchild might need them.
Sandra and her partner Marcel are both in the midst of their training when Jason is born, but their baby gives them both wings. Determined to do well, Sandra is delighted when she graduates as one of the best in her year. “I showed them,” she crows, clutching her diploma. But, as their children grow older, so too do Jennifer and Jasmine begin to find the confidence to make their own way in life.

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