Cinema listings with film information and movie reviews
The Guardians (Les gardiennes)
Director Xavier Beauvois draws inspiration from the novel by Ernest Perochon to document the experiences of a group of women left behind by their husbands and sons during the First World War. Hortense Sandrail (Nathalie Baye) presides over her family's farm with an iron fist now her husband Henri (Gilbert Bonneau) is too old and frail to perform gruelling physical labour. The ageing matriarch is aided by her daughter Solange (Laura Smet), whose husband Clovis (Olivier Rabourdin) is serving his country. Hortense's two sons, school teacher Constant (Nicolas Giraud) and Georges (Cyril Descours), are also away at war, leaving the women to plough the land, harvest crops and tend to livestock. The daily toil proves too much, so Hortense hires a 20-year-old orphan called Francine (Iris Bry) to lighten the backbreaking load. Francine is an excellent worker and she proves invaluable to the Sandrail family while the men repel the advances of the German army. As the years pass, Francine's role within the household expands and she threatens to steal the heart of Georges when he returns home from the conflict.
