It was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.

[3] The film is set on a farm in the Limousin region of central France during, and just after, the First World War.

With her two sons Georges and Constant, and son-in-law, Clovis, serving in the army, Hortense Sandrail employs Francine Riant, a young woman brought up in an orphanage to help on the farm.

Francine shares a room with young Marguerite, who is in love with Georges, who also visits her whilst on leave.

One man appears to have an affair with Solange and gossip starts in the village about women on the farm.

Just as he is leaving for the front, Georges sees Francine struggling to free herself from the attentions of a young American soldier and believes her to be unfaithful to him.

The man from the Council who passed on her school certificate and an allowance when she left the orphanage, is a godparent.

The website's critical consensus reads, "The Guardians proves that the oft-unraveled canvas of World War I still has fresh stories to tell — and adds another gorgeously filmed entry to Xavier Beauvois' filmography.

"[4] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".