The Puritan life is the belief that idle hands were the devil’s playground. They live their lives in purity, peacefulness, and simplicity.

In The Delivered, one Puritan’s life turned upside down as two strangers showed up at her family’s doorsteps that’ll change their lives forever.

The film stars Maxine Peake (The Theory of Everything, Shameless), Charles Dance (Mank, Game of Thrones), and Tanya Reynolds (Emma, Sex Education). This film marked Reynolds’ first professional on-camera experience. Thomas Clay (Soi Cowboy, The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael) wrote and directed the film.

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Here’s the long synopsis:

In 1657, Fanny and John Lye and their young son Arthur live lives of Puritan stricture on a remote Shropshire farm in a valley beside a forest. Once a Captain in the English Civil War, now a firm believer in Oliver Cromwell’s republic, John suffers a game leg, and therefore it is Fanny who must carry out most duties around the farm, taken for granted both husband and son.

One morning, when the family is out at church, two uninvited visitors take refuge in their barn: the charismatic Thomas Ashbury and his young ‘wife’ Rebecca Henshaw, who comes running from the forest naked as Adam and Eve. Thomas tells a story of robbery by vicious highwaymen. Although suspicious, John offers clothes and shelter for the night—which satisfied Fanny’s compassionate nature.

Whilst the young couple are polite, almost obsequious at first, soon Thomas’ carefree manner can’t help but reveal itself: he makes seductive eyes at Fanny and then draws Arthur into a food fight, for which—despite Thomas’ protestations—the house patriarch disciplines both wife and child. The next day, as Thomas and John coppice wood, Rebecca accidentally reveals to Fanny that she and Thomas are unmarried.

Soon after, three more strangers approach the farm: a Sheriff and his Deputy, accompanied by the local Constable, hunting members of a blasphemous ‘Ranter’ sect. From here, events quickly escalate in ways that will change all their lives forever.

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LRM Online exclusively obtained a clip from The Delivered. In this scene, Thomas Ashbury and Rebecca Henshaw held Fanny Lye’s family hostage in the house. John Lye made an attempt to free his failure with ill consequences.

The Delivered is available as VOD on January 15. The film is currently playing in the United Kingdom under the title of Fanny Lye Deliver’d.

Watch the exclusive below from the film. Let us know what you think.

https://youtu.be/l5pTBVaejLw

Source: LRM Online Exclusive, BFI, Creative England