A musical biopic composed of religious ballads, The Testament of Ann Lee chronicles the life of the eponymous 18th-century religious leader, played with great passion by Amanda Seyfried. It spans several decades and traces Anne's travels from Manchester to New York, and the newly invented religious dogmas that guided her. This is a film of spiritual ecstasy that lives on the edge of realism – for better or worse – while at the same time mythologizing an oft-forgotten historical figure whose unusual beliefs about celibacy had an altruistic purpose, making it a particularly compelling experience.
Director Brutalist “The Testament of Ann Lee,” co-written by Mona Fastvold and co-written by that film's director and fellow co-writer Brady Corbet, is presented with all the lush historical detail you'd expect, made even more compelling by William Rexer's 70mm cinematography. It begins with an out-of-context image of women in bonnets and religious robes moving rhythmically through a forest in the late 1700s. This image, divorced from time, is all that most people know about the United Society of Believers in the Second Coming of Christ, also known as the Shakers, a particularly persistent Christian sect – their number has recently increased rose to 3. Anne was once their prophet, one of the rare female figures of such importance at the time.
One of these dancers, Mary Partington (Thomasin McKenzie), is both a key supporting character in the film and also its narrator, providing conflicting information about Anne's life but ultimately deciding which parts of her story are worth telling… and believing. This is a film about redefining the doctrine, which itself is reinterpreted for the audience by a woman who strives to make Anna (affectionately called “Mother” by her fans) like the Second Coming. Regardless of what the filmmakers themselves believe (Fastvold grew up in a secular family), they present The Testament of Ann Lee as an article of faith, which makes it especially intoxicating.
As a child and early adult, Anne had a complex relationship with her body and beliefs, from her aversion to sex to sudden flashes of visceral biblical imagery in the film; Brief inserts of Renaissance paintings of Eden especially feature phallic snakes. Forming her worldview, she and her supportive brother William (Lewis Pullman) join the Shakers in their early days, attending closed-door meetings where confession is made in the form of song and sins are cast out through writhing and rhythmic beats. This is a time of great religious upheaval; Methodism was just beginning, the Church of England was enmeshed in government power and brutal punishment, and the Shakers worshiped in secret.
After her marriage to churchgoer Abraham (Christopher Abbott), Anne's experiments with sex and BDSM have left her spiritually unfulfilled. Years pass and she gives birth to four different children, all of whom die before reaching the age of one, leading to a pervasive grief that influences how she ultimately changes the Shaker church. The film views Anne's mourning not only as the key to her renunciation of carnal urges, but also as the basis of her self-proclaimed divinity. She claims that her visions come to her during moments of mania, such as when she is imprisoned for her beliefs and is likely sick and dehydrated. However, the film doesn't need to be skeptical about its chronology. Instead, the camera embraces Lee's theological status and the frame admires the ritual movements of the Shakers, capturing the worshipers in alternating close-ups and panoramas as they beat their chests with open palms.
Songs and movements taken from real shaker musicare acoustically addictive, even if the people singing do not have particularly pleasant tones. Your experience may vary, but that's part of the film's commitment to naturalistic performances. Not every church member will become a professional singer, although every member of the congregation is completely devoted to Anna's visions of a better world, free from tyranny and cruelty. It's hard to disagree with her goal, even if the idea of ​​lifelong celibacy seems strange or self-defeating.
The film's ensemble is superbly cast, especially Tim Blake Nelson and Jamie Bogio as older churchgoers who—in a decision that seems almost countercultural, despite the Shakers' conservative restrictions—give in to the young woman's word. This belief eventually leads the Shakers across the Atlantic to the New World, where they remain largely apolitical but suffer the consequences for it during the Revolutionary War. However, as Anna's convictions grow stronger, Abraham falters, testing each of their commitments to the cause of an abstract utopia with no clear path beyond what Christ supposedly tells her.
Seyfried, however, takes great pleasure in delivering Anne's unwavering zeal, delivering a career-best performance as a woman who emerges from the throes of suffering so confident in herself that she believes with every fiber of her being that her concept of the world and its suffering is correct, and that everyone deserves a piece of her, even though they must participate willingly. However, if there is a downside to the film's portrayal of Anne through Mary's eyes, it is that her concept as a saintly figure creates a narrative in which she is rarely tempted to stray from her path, offering little in the way of dramatic tension as the film progresses.
There is nothing particularly cruel about the Shakers, other than the way they excommunicate members who violate their rules regarding adultery. Beyond that, being immersed in their world for two hours and the change borders on liberating, especially during the impact prayer scenes. Composer Daniel Blumberg's instrumentation remains largely true to what could be heard at the time, but when characters like William are carried away by Mother Anne's words—Pullman gives the film his all in these moments—the rules are broken and the music erupts through space and time with the sound of electric guitars, luring the Shakers into the future. The fact that they did not survive into the 19th century unscathed due to violent eruptions seems incredibly tragic in the end.
