Film Evaluate: ‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’

Opening in theaters on December 25 is ‘The Testomony of Ann Lee,’ directed and co-written by Mona Fastvold and starring Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, Christopher Abbott, Stacy Martin, Scott Useful, Matthew Beard, Viola Prettejohn and Tim Blake Nelson.

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Preliminary Ideas

You in all probability received’t see one other film like ‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’ this awards season and even this 12 months. It’s an odd, typically surreal, and numinous historic drama that’s steadily harrowing but at occasions extraordinarily transferring. It’s additionally a musical of kinds, though most of the numbers are primarily based on non secular hymns and wouldn’t sound misplaced in a folks horror movie.

Directed by Mona Fastvold and co-written by Fastvold together with her longtime companion Brady Corbet – who directed 2024’s ‘The Brutalist,’ which the couple additionally co-wrote – ‘Ann Lee’ is, like that movie, eerily immersive in its historic interval and pushed by a singular efficiency from its star. You merely can not take your eyes off Amanda Seyfried on this movie, even when different actors are considerably sidelined and the movie itself raises questions on its topic which might be by no means actually answered.

Story and Path

Born in Manchester, England in 1736, Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) is introduced up in a strict non secular family, one in all eight kids, and despatched to work at an early age in a cotton manufacturing unit. In her 20s, she joins a non secular sect often called the Shakers – actually the ‘Shaking Quakers,’ an offshoot of the Quaker religion that expiates sin and expresses devotion to God by way of ecstatic shaking, dancing, and singing.

After marrying an iron employee named Abraham (Christopher Abbott), being initiated into intercourse, and giving beginning to 4 kids who all die in infancy, Ann is dedicated to an asylum. These experiences, mixed with a stint in jail for public evangelizing, set off visions which lead to her being deemed the second coming of Christ in feminine type.

Now often called Mom Ann Lee, Ann establishes a doctrine for the Shakers that renounces all sexual exercise, which doesn’t sit nicely with Abraham. But the Shakers additionally imagine in gender equality, pacifism, human rights (they’re appalled by slavery), and group sharing. More and more persecuted in England, Ann, her devoted brother William (Lewis Pullman), and a small band of followers journey to the American colonies and settle in upstate New York – however their persecution doesn’t finish there.

Mona Fastvold presents all this in linear, simple style, including surreal imagery and a few showy digicam strikes to intensify the extra religious moments of Ann Lee’s life. The songs – a mixture of chants, Shaker hymns, and folks melodies – are haunting sufficient to not conflict with the movie’s tone and esthetic, which veers from the pastoral to the brutal – the latter particularly within the scenes the place Ann provides beginning, in addition to a later, harrowing sequence of persecution and torture.

The place Fastvold loses focus is the story’s which means. The Shakers espoused some actually progressive beliefs, and their dancing and shaking had been certainly rapturous, even bordering (a minimum of onscreen) on the erotic. That brings Ann’s complete inflexible adherence to celibacy for her flock into query, alongside together with her personal psychological state and the frankly cult-like piety of her followers.

Was she channeling the divine, or was she affected by trauma introduced on by sexual dysfunction and the horrific lack of her kids? How did her anti-sex mandate coexist with ‘be fruitful and multiply’? The movie doesn’t make a robust case both method, and whereas it’s visually highly effective and sometimes dramatically transferring, there’s a little bit of an empty feeling on the finish (particularly when the closing credit reveal that there are solely three Shakers left on this planet immediately).

Solid and Performances

Amanda Seyfried has at all times been an distinctive actor, however she pushes herself to new heights in ‘Ann Lee.’ In a 12 months stuffed with uncooked performances by girls like Rose Byrne, Jessie Buckley, and Jennifer Lawrence, Seyfried not solely fearlessly embraces the extremes which might be introduced upon Ann – together with graphically disastrous childbirths, beatings, and torture – however totally inhabits the spirituality and dedication of the ladies.

Whereas no matter drove Ann Lee – whether or not it was a connection to the divine or the throes of psychological sickness – is open to debate, Seyfried by no means leaves any doubt of what Ann herself believes. Her delicate bodily transformation and exquisite singing voice solely add to what’s nothing lower than an epic efficiency.

It is a disgrace that most of the different characters and performers wrestle to face out within the shadow of Seyfried’s work, however Thomasin McKenzie makes an impression as her devoted assistant Mary and Lewis Pullman broadens his vary as nicely along with his portrayal of Ann’s fiercely loyal and religious brother William. Additionally notable is Christopher Abbott, whose face tells the story of a person who’s slowly trying out of what he discovered so compelling about Ann and the Shaker beliefs – it’s too unhealthy that he kind of disappears from the story midway by way of.

Remaining Ideas

Regardless of its thematic murkiness – and lapses in character improvement for everybody however its central determine – ‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’ remains to be a novel cinematic expertise. We will’t say sufficient about Seyfried’s efficiency, and the movie as an entire is a gripping, evocative expertise.

And setting apart the query of Ann’s convictions and the Shakers’ dedication to them, ‘Ann Lee’ can also be a portrait of a lady attempting to espouse and lengthen daring beliefs and, after all, assembly resistance each step of the best way. That she manages to create a minimum of the beginnings of a really egalitarian society, regardless of the percentages and its personal unusual attributes, is akin in a technique to the creation of such a difficult movie itself.

‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’ receives a rating of 85 out of 100.

What’s the plot of ‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’?

Visionary religious chief Ann Lee rises from obscurity in 18th century England to forge the novel non secular motion that can turn out to be the Shakers. Pushed by her beliefs and persecuted in two international locations, Ann gathers devoted followers who come to see her as the feminine embodiment of Christ.

Who’s within the solid of ‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’?

• Amanda Seyfried as Ann Lee
• Lewis Pullman as William Lee
• Thomasin McKenzie as Mary Partington
• Christopher Abbott as Abraham Standerin
• Stacy Martin as Jane Wardley
• Scott Useful as James Wardley
• Matthew Beard as James Whittaker
• Viola Prettejohn as Nancy Lee
• Tim Blake Nelson as Pastor Reuben Wright

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