Director: Mona Fastvold
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott
Duration: 137 Minutes
 
Awards season often favors spectacle and accessibility, but The Testament of Ann Lee is the kind of film that challenges audiences—and suffers for it. Mona Fastvold’s audacious historical musical premiered to hesitation rather than acclaim, a response that speaks more to expectations than the film itself. This is not an easy sell: a mid-18th-century story about the founder of the Shaker movement, told through a radical musical lens. Yet it is precisely this resistance to categorization that makes it one of the year’s most distinctive cinematic experiences.
 
Set in England, the film follows Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), a working-class woman trapped by grief, societal control, and repeated childbearing. After losing all four of her children and enduring relentless oppression, Ann reaches a breaking point and declares herself the second coming of Christ. She leads a Shaker offshoot founded on celibacy, gender equality, communal labor, and pacifism.
 
While the premise is religious, the film’s core concerns are emancipation and survival. Faith is depicted not as doctrine but as a tool for freedom—Ann’s only means of autonomy in a world that grants her none. Whether she believes in her divine calling or invents it as a survival mechanism is secondary; belief itself becomes her liberation.
 
The film also explores utopian ideals. The Shakers are portrayed as egalitarian, communal, and gentle—a fragile attempt at a world without violence. Their migration from England to America highlights that oppression may shift but never fully disappears, underscoring a subtle pessimism about humanity.
 
Music, composed by Daniel Blumberg, is central yet unconventional. Drawing from Shaker hymns and natural soundscapes, the score is raw and trance-like. Musical sequences feel ecstatic rather than polished, ritualistic rather than performative. Seyfried’s vocals are intentionally unrefined, alternating between tender and ferocious, showcasing one of her most demanding and exposed performances.
 
Visually, the film excels in restraint. William Rexer’s cinematography favors intimacy over spectacle, using natural light—candles, windows, fire—to create painterly compositions reminiscent of Barry Lyndon. During moments of spiritual rapture, the camera becomes handheld, physically echoing worship. Fastvold’s meticulous attention to tactile detail—fabric, wood, blood, milk, feathers—renders the body and labor sacred, grounding the narrative in visceral reality.
 
The film’s pacing and narrative opacity may test viewers’ patience, and its refusal to guide the audience explains its polarizing reception. But this is intentional: The Testament of Ann Lee asks audiences to feel rather than decode, to submit rather than judge.
 
Ultimately, this is not a conventional religious musical but a poetic, defiant meditation on freedom—spiritual, bodily, and emotional. It may not be immediately accessible or crowd-pleasing, but its singular vision and craft make it a haunting, thought-provoking work. Over time, it is likely to be rediscovered and revered as one of the year’s most daring cinematic achievements.