In telling the life story of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried)—leader of the Shaker Christian sect that blossomed in the late 1700s—director Mona Fastvold chose a bold approach: presumably inspired by the Shaker tradition of incorporating dramatic dance and song in worship, she and co-writer Brady Corbet fashion The Testament of Ann Lee as a musical. There are the ecstatic gatherings—including a single-take sequence in which choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall arranges the dancers in a way that evokes ants emerging from a nest—as well as narrative sequences in which the characters sing variations on Shaker songs, composed by Daniel Blumberg, while forwarding the plot. It’s gutsy and largely works, though something about the theatricality of it all kept me at a distance. I watched the religious fervor on display here more than I experienced it, especially as compared to spiritually rapturous character portraits from the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrei Rublev), Terrence Malick (A Hidden Life), or Carl Theodor Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc). (On a lesser plane, I’d also include Rose Glass’ Saint Maud.) If The Testament of Ann Lee lacks a certain zeal, however, it’s no fault of Seyfried, who has the big eyes of belief and brings a level of tremulous conviction to match. While Seyfried locks into Lee’s passion, the rest of the film largely sees her theology through a sociological/psychological lens. In Fastvold’s telling, Lee’s obsession with chastity and the physical expulsion of sin, which would become markers of the Shaker faith, were a result of her patriarchal upbringing and violating marriage. In other words, significant matters, but strictly ones of the flesh.
(12/4/2025)
