Full of the sleepy rhythms of rural life, this beautiful-looking French drama has a powerful story of emancipation stitched into its period garb.

A story of women waiting for their soldiers to return, this unfolds in fairly predictable fashion, though the film's solemnity is seductive.

Set in a quiet corner of France, The Guardians is a study of women, often mothers, daughters, and sisters, on the home front during World War I as they combat the everyday and the uncertainty often brought with conflict.

hat tone of stillness wrapped around small plotlines of disquiet plods to limit most dramatic impact to mere slightness.