From award-winning writer-director Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, The Brutalist) comes the extraordinary true legend of Ann Lee, founder of the devotional sect known as the Shakers. Amanda Seyfried stars as the Shaker's irrepressible leader, who - having been born into poverty in Manchester, England - went on to preach gender and social equality and was revered by her followers. The Testament of Ann Lee captures the ecstasy and agony of her quest to build a utopia, featuring more than a dozen traditional Shaker hymns reimagined as rapturous movements with choreography by Celia Rowlson-Hall (Vox Lux) and original songs & score by Academy Award winner Daniel Blumberg (The Brutalist).
The Garden Cinema View:
One of the year’s strangest films, The Testament of Ann Lee brews up Brechtian musical numbers with the repressed erotic piety of The Devils, and horror notes reminiscent of The VVitch and Midsommar. This tale of a visionary emigration from Europe to America also inevitably contains echoes of Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet’s previous film, The Brutalist. The Testament of Ann Lee truly succeeds, however, due to a possessed performance from Amanda Seyfried (never better), and Daniel Blumberg’s reworking of traditional Shaker songs, which range from dissonant atonal compositions, to sweetly lyrical ballads, and even exultant showtunes.
