By George & Josh Bate
Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet have become quite the cinematic power couple in the past decade. The filmmaking collaborators and real-life couple have worked together on The Childhood of a Leader, Vox Lux, and last year’s extraordinary The Brutalist, all of which intelligently and daringly explored a variety of complex themes, including fascism, celebrity, immigration, the American Dream, and more. The duo’s latest collaboration, The Testament of Ann Lee, retains the filmmaking craft that marked their previous efforts but struggles to transcend beyond a surface-level understanding of an interesting true-story about a remarkable woman.
The Testament of Ann Lee stars Amanda Seyfried as the titular character. Taking place in 18th century England, director and co-writer Fastvold’s film chronicles the true story of Ann Lee, a woman who rises above great trauma to forge a radical new religious group known as the Shakers. As Ann’s following grows, so does the persecution she faces, forcing her to fight for what she believes in and eventually move to America to continue her movement.
It’s remarkable that the tale of Ann Lee has yet to be dramatized on-screen until Fastvold’s film this year. A figure centuries ahead of her time, Ann Lee espoused bold beliefs about Christ and sexuality that made her a revolutionary and feminist in the truest sense of the words, with beliefs so divergent from the norms of the time (and even our norms today) that it’s difficult to believe her story is true. Unfortunately, however, as a character study of Ann Lee and examination of her radical religious movement, The Testament of Ann Lee falls desperately short due to its failure to effectively convey the fascinating life, beliefs, and legacy of its titular character in a particularly engaging manner.
Fastvold’s film prioritizes style over substance. The Testament of Ann Lee is technically marvelous, bolstering meticulous shot composition, gorgeous cinematography, fearless musical set-pieces, and some of the year’s best costumes and production design. It’s a film that never ceases to showcase Fastvold’s singular talent for visual storytelling. Eighteenth century England and America are stunningly realized, a feat made all the more incredible given the film’s relatively small budget, and Fastvold excels in constructing a period piece that feels authentic and unfiltered.
Disappointingly, the filmmaking achievements of The Testament of Ann Lee are disappointingly contrasted with superficial character work and storytelling. For a story solely centered around a woman and the birth of her radical religious beliefs, the film surprisingly never convincingly nor interestingly explains how Ann Lee came to develop her beliefs and, even more damningly, what these beliefs even are. Fastvold describes Lee’s belief that copulation is a sin and tenuously links this to the trauma of losing her young children but never dives deeply enough into our lead character’s psyche and motivations. Given the film’s emphasis on the role sex plays in sin and religion, other facets of Lee’s radical beliefs, including the idea of a genderless God and her existing as the female embodiment of Christ, go woefully underexplored and leave the viewer with only a cursory understanding of what made the Shakers as unique as they were.
With the narrative depth of a Wikipedia article, The Testament of Ann Lee limits the strength of its actors’ performances. Across the board, the ensemble sports inaccurate and inconsistent Mancunian accents that range from distracting to comical. In turn, much of the immersion in the time period and story fostered by the aforementioned technical achievements is squandered as poor accents regularly pull one out of otherwise solid performances. Amanda Seyfried illuminates as Ann Lee with a voracious and simultaneously feral and controlled performance, although her accent and the lack of depth in the screenplay mean the full potential of this performance never comes to fruition. Thankfully, the strength of Seyfried’s performance ensures that investment in Ann Lee comes easily and that, when she experiences trauma and hardships, so does the audience vicariously.
Meanwhile, supporting players, including Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, and Christopher Abbott, produce serviceable turns that never come close to matching the quality of Seyfried’s performance and are similarly hindered by poor accents.
Representing a rare point of novelty, however, is the handling of musical sequences in The Testament of Ann Lee. Despite featuring musical set-pieces, Fastvold’s film is a far cry from the average musical, both in the composition of its songs and staging of its sequences. As music and hymns are hallmarks of the Shaker faith, Fastvold folds in a number of scenes that depict the raw, almost animalistic dances and rituals of Ann Lee’s religious movement. Like the rest of the film, these scenes are masterfully composed and make up for, at least in part, the failure to expound on the beliefs of the Shakers by offering a visual representation of their divergence from religious norms of the time. The musical set-pieces fit seamlessly into the story and, unlike many other musicals, prevent the film from devolving into more heightened tonal territory. The Testament of Ann Lee may err in a number of ways, but its myriad of impressive singing and dancing sequences are not among them.
VERDICT: 5/10
The Testament of Ann Lee fails to effectively dramatize the fascinating true story of a woman centuries ahead of her time. The film from director and co-writer Mona Fastvold is a technical marvel, bolstering meticulous shot composition, gorgeous cinematography, and some of the year’s best costumes and production design. Unfortunately, Fastvold prioritizes style over substance in crafting a film with the narrative depth of a Wikipedia article, astonishingly never convincingly nor interestingly explaining how Ann Lee came to develop her radical religious beliefs and, even more damningly, what these beliefs even are. Given the film’s emphasis on the role sex plays in sin and religion, other facets of Lee’s radical beliefs, including the idea of a genderless God and her existing as the female embodiment of Christ, go woefully underexplored and leave the viewer with only a cursory understanding of what made the Shakers as unique as they were. Across the board, the performances from its ensemble struggle with inaccurate and inconsistent Mancunian accents that often take one out of an otherwise immersive period piece. Despite stumbling with her accent, Amanda Seyfried perseveres to achieve an illuminating, voracious, and simultaneously feral and controlled performance that ensures investment in Ann Lee comes easily and that, when she experiences trauma and hardships, so does the audience vicariously. Representing a rare point of novelty for the film, the musical set-pieces illuminate the screen in their seamless integration into the story and their use as a visual representation of the uniqueness of Shaker beliefs. Ann Lee was an extraordinary, trailblazing woman, driven by unshakable beliefs that could be considered radical even by today’s standards. Unfortunately, The Testament of Ann Lee falls far short of the remarkability of its titular character.