I am not a religious person but I have always been fascinated with religion. The worship, the art, and the comfort that religion can bring is something that I find beautiful, even though it is not for me. So when it comes to films about religious leaders, I am always curious. Are they going to be your run of the mill Easter weekend movie or is it going to be something closer to Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ? With Mona Fastvold’s latest feature, The Testament of Ann Lee, does something else entirely.
We are told the life of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) through the eyes of one of her closest follower and her younger sister, Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), from her early childhood in Manchester, England to her final years in the United States as she creates the Christian religious sect known as The Shakers.
On the surface, The Testament of Ann Lee is structured like a standard biopic, but it never plays like one. Epic in scope yet intimate in execution, the film offers a striking character study of the self-proclaimed female prophet. We may never fully understand Ann Lee, her faith, her convictions, or what compelled her so fiercely, but the film makes it easy to see why others devoted themselves to her. Amanda Seyfried delivers a career-best performance, embodying Ann with a magnetic force that is equal parts commanding and transcendent. Though illiterate, Ann grounds her life in the teachings of Christ, standing apart from the very Church that exiled her and her followers. What emerges is a portrait of a woman who is not only a spiritual leader, but also a source of comfort, discipline, and wisdom for those who need her most.
While some may argue The Testament of Ann Lee keeps its subject at a distance, Mona Fastvold gives us more than enough to understand the foundations of Ann’s religious philosophy. As a child, Ann witnesses her father reduce her mother to little more than a vessel for his pleasure, an early wound that sparks her lifelong revulsion toward sex. That revulsion hardens into conviction after the loss of her four children, a grief she interprets as divine punishment for surrendering to desire. The Church only confirms her disillusionment, wielding shame and violence against anyone who falters or dares to question authority. Out of that pain, Ann shapes a radical new vision of Christianity, one that rejects cruelty in favor of compassion, insists on forgiveness as its guiding principle, and reimagines God as both male and female, with the Second Coming destined to arrive not as a man, but as a woman.
Even if Ann Lee herself feels elusive, the craftsmanship in Mona Fastvold’s film is undeniable. Despite the 70mm projector breaking barely ten minutes in, The Testament of Ann Lee remains visually breathtaking. Each frame evokes the richness of a Dutch Master or a neoclassical canvas, rendered with painterly precision. Daniel Blumberg’s score, drawn from Shaker hymns, builds into a swirling rapture that lifts the film in its moments of spiritual release, as bodies give themselves over to song and dance. I may not be religious, but the sheer force of those hymns was impossible not to feel. And with production and costume design that so fully immerse us in eighteenth-century England and colonial America, the film envelops us in a world that feels both distant and immediate.
The Testament of Ann Lee is nothing short of a cinematic force. It won’t resonate with everyone, but for those willing to surrender to the rhythm of the Shaker spirit, it delivers an experience that lingers long after the credits. Fastvold has crafted a film that is both intimate and monumental, a vision that demands attention. And above all, don’t forget to praise Mother.
My Rating: A-
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