FANNY LYE DELIVER’D

OUT 24 AUGUST / CERT 18 / 111 MINS

Part folk horror, part survivalist character study, this Puritan-set period piece confirms that Maxine Peake holds a reigning title in British cinema today. Playing the oppressed yet resilient wife of an ex-military man (Charles Dance), Peake’s character Fanny has endured the atrocities of the English Civil War and maintains a well-run home until a pair of Leveller-preaching fugitives arrive on her doorstep (Freddie Fox and Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds). Quickly and violently the household’s power dynamic unravels, and Fanny must decide where her best chance of survival lies once again. With its 1970s censor card and custom-built folklore setting, it would be easy to label Thomas Clay’s handsomely crafted third feature as a pastiche, but this is far from a boxed-in genre film. Instead, Fanny Lye Deliver’d subtly depicts the awakening of a woman who has been controlled by the patriarchy for too long.