Directed by Mona Fastvold and co-written with Brady Corbet, The Testament Ann Lee is unlike anything you’ve seen a very long time.
Though there have been biographies that try to offer another way to tell a story, biographical films using end up in the drama or comedy arenas with fair to middling results. But add in the founding of religion, a lot choral singing and chanting and most importantly, dancing that will keep you captivated from start to finish and you have the making of something completely different. Directed by Mona Fastvold and co-written with Brady Corbet, The Testament Ann Lee is unlike anything you’ve seen a very long time.
This is the story of Ann Lee, or Mother Ann as she was eventually known as. From her harsh beginnings to her going on to becoming a founder of the Shakers religious sect in the 18th Century, starting in Manchester, UK and taking her followers to America.
The first element of the film that will hit you is the singing, which at first feels as though you’ve entered church, unwillingly, and there is a fear that you’ll be watching a very long film about overly devout people telling you how amazing God and the church is, but this isn’t that kind of film. When Ann Lee finds her people, with a woman preacher and lots of singing but more importantly, breathtaking (in every sense) dance sequences, the film really begins and takes shape. The music and dance is key to the very story as the Shakers were given this name precisely for their erratic dancing and moving. With each chapter of Ann’s life and journey neatly told in chapters, the film feels like a storybook film, even with the infant deaths, violent non-believers and unforgiving husbands.
Throughout the song and dance, the story told, its clear that much of her tale is hear say and sometimes even interpretation. Its also very easy to see how a cult is formed from a main religion, except unlike make cult like religions, the Shakers followed one strict rule that they believed would bring them closer to God, they were celibate. Most cults want their followers to increase but the Shakers were all about keeping it zipped. A major part of the movement and major plot point in the story. But at least the Shakers had all that breathy dancing to get it all out.
This writing duo do love overly long run times for their films. Ann Lee definitely could have done with some trimming down, one too many scenes of people of wailing or sequences that could have been cut short as the film likes to hammer home its story beats. With the first half, there is little to find fault with, yet the minute Ann decides to take her Shaker group over to America, the land of hope and supposed glory, the pace slows down, the story stutters, even the music feels repetitive in a less captivating way. The characters start to disappear, though new ones enter, the energy that was a joy to behold almost disappears. The story picks up slightly towards the very end but it’s a brutal scene followed complete sadness. The emotional roller-coaster has less of a flow completely, bar a final scene and tableau of the remaining original members, this section in America could have been shorter, if only to save the impact of the first.
It’s no surprise that that Fastvold and Corbet have created a spectacle once again, with their previous screenplays involving a fictious childhood of a future terrifying leader, the complicated story of a pop star and a Holocaust survivor becomes an architect and tries to break barriers. Adding to the list, Ann Lee, feels almost like a strange combination of all these stories rolled in one. Never has a film about a religious figurehead and founder been so pious, dramatic and with so much breathy heaving dancing. Despite the flaws and annoyances, the boasts some admiral performances as well as some fantastic singing from the likes of Lewis Pullman and Thomasin McKenzie. The stand out is of course Ann Lee herself played by Amanda Seyfried who not only sings beautifully and truly embodies her character, but she manages to keep up that Mancunian accent for ninety percent of the film. In fact, kudos should go to the rest of the cast for keeping up their accents for as much as possible. The Testament of Ann Lee is something bizarrely special that one would hope will be remembered come award season, or least live on to be a film that is talked about years later.Â
