After the civil war in Great Britain that was fought in the middle of the 17th century between royalists and parliamentarians led by Oliver Cromwell, the first English king in history, Charles I, was executed. At that time, the Christian movement of the Puritans, an extremely strict and fundamentalist movement within Protestantism, was strong. and one of those strict and strict Puritans is John Lye (Charles Dance). He was once an officer in Cromwell’s army and lives on an isolated farm in Shropshire with his wife Fanny Lye (Maxine Peake) and son Arthur. And it’s one of those traditional marriages where John is the master of life and death, and the wife has to obey him in everything and she doesn’t even have the right to vote. As John says, it will be, but their world will change completely when a young couple, Thomas and Rebecca, who are being chased by the local sheriff and his deputy, suddenly appear on their property.
Although reluctant, John will allow them to stay on their property until they recover after Thomas convinces him that they were attacked and robbed by bandits along the way. But very soon old John will hear rumors that Thomas and Rebecca are wanted for organizing orgies and subversive preaching that the meaning of Christianity is not guilt, but love, and that a woman is equal to a man. Slowly, Thomas and Rebecca will begin to spread their revolutionary campaign in the Ly family’s house as well, even influencing Fanny, who until yesterday was completely subservient and obedient to her husband. However, very soon we will encounter the question of whether the charismatic Thomas is really so dedicated to his mission of spreading free love, or is he just the other side of the same temperament that cannot do without violently imposing his will on others.
At one point, this somewhat theatrical minimalist period drama shot in one location, that is, a typical British country house of the time and in its muddy garden, will turn into a somewhat baroque “Funny Games”. John, who has dominated others all his life, will now feel on his skin what subjugation looks like. Although the subject of the film, written and directed by the British indie filmmaker Thomas Clay, is extremely intriguing, “Fanny Lye Delivered” still remained somewhat sketchy and average, even completely predictable, and I was missing something there. The strongest asset of this dark drama-thriller is certainly the convincing performances of the two main actors, and the message that Clay seems to have tried to send through this film is that all radicalism is equally dangerous. Especially the hideous religious radicalism, fanaticism and fundamentalism with which for centuries these dumbfounded idiots oppressed the rest of the world with stories and brainwashed the poor, often illiterate wretches about the beauty of suffering, restraint and waiting for a heavenly reward.