The Testament of Ann Lee is unlike any film I’ve ever seen – it’s more of an experience than a movie – and one likely to turn off some cinemagoers.
It’s highly theatrical, experimental and sometimes weird, but so committed to its radical approach that I was not only won over, but actually moved. There’s also a career-best dramatic performance from Amanda Seyfried in the eponymous role.
From the team behind The Brutalist, which wowed Venice Film Festival last year and became an awards season darling, this time co-writer Mona Fastvold is at the helm while The Brutalist’s director Brady Corbet takes on producing and screenplay duties alongside Fastvold, his real-life partner.
They are back at the Lido just 12 months later. But this is something totally different: the only things that really tie these two films together are the extraordinary talent and dedication of their creative teams and the shoe-string budget – this time $10million (£7.4m).
Both movies do share a loose theme of immigrating to America in pursuit of a better life but that’s about it, given that The Testament of Ann Lee is an historical musical epic that can’t be compared to any other musical or biopic. It’s entirely its own beast.
The harsh way it will divide fans can’t be better demonstrated than the fact that there were several walkouts in my screening before it then went on to clinch one of the longer standing ovations at Venice this year with 15 minutes.
Seyfried is Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers, a religious sect who engaged in dramatic, full-body physical worship of God – moaning, stomping, writhing and beating their chests, believing it helped exorcise sin – as well as living celibate lives.
The music and choreography for The Testament of Ann Lee are therefore crucial to its impact and some of the most memorable aspects of the film.
Daniel Blumberg – who won the Oscar for The Brutalist – has composed haunting and gorgeous melodies that are enough to put you into some sort of euphoric trance, and are still playing in my head days later. It’s stunning work based on real Shaker hymns and lyrics.
The music is also near-continuous, propelling the film and giving it so much of its power – and when combined with Celia Rowlson-Hall’s intense choreography, the effect is genuinely mesmerising. The actors’ movements chime perfectly with the music we’re hearing, working seamlessly together.
It is quite a lot to process in its avant-garde nature, along with an overall film that can be perplexing in places – so you do have to be open-minded and patient to allow The Testament of Ann Lee grow on you.
Ann (Amanda Seyfried) is a pious but independent woman from a poor working class family in eighteenth-century Manchester, who remained illiterate her whole life.
But through joining Jane and James Wardley’s (Stacy Martin and Scott Handy) Quaker worship group alongside her brother William (Lewis Pullman), she finds peace, inspiration and eventually a leadership role as ‘Mother Ann’, with her followers believing she is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Seyfried deftly handles this complex role that demands a lot of her, least of all a Manchester accent (largely successful) and plenty of singing, allowing her to show off her gorgeous, soaring vocals.
Ann also lives an extremely tough life with more than her fair share of hardship: after reluctantly marrying her husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott), she gives birth to and loses four children in their infancy – shown in bloody, graphic detail – with that trauma playing into her adoption of celibacy.
Her visions from God are presented by Fastvold as glorious paintings that can lean into hallucinations, if not madness – Ann is imprisoned and starving at the time – but without any judgement. And Seyfried never overplays it, showing us a passionate woman with the utter courage of her convictions.
The intensity of The Testament of Ann Lee makes it a bit mad as a movie sometimes, but that seems perfectly fitting for a film about what is essentially a cult, if a benign one, focused on community and fellowship. At its peak in 1840s America, the Shakers numbered around 6,000 compared to today’s single digits.
That Lee was often seen as too radical for comfort during her lifetime, it seems fitting that this musical biopic and its approach to telling her story is so unusual, making it a particularly arresting and intimate period drama.
It’s not going to be for everyone, but if you surrender to it then The Testament of Ann Lee is quite a profound experience. There’s been nothing really like it before.
The Testament of Ann Lee premiered at Venice Film Festival on September 1. It is yet to confirm a UK release date.
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