I didn’t know hardly anything about the Shakers before hearing about Mona Fastvold’s musical The Testament of Ann Lee, and now having seen the film, I find the egalitarian Christian sect utterly fascinating. With her third feature as director and third collaboration with partner Brady Corbet (she co-wrote The Brutalist and Vox Lux, Corbet co-wrote and produced this film), Fastvold finds a way to combine the Shakers’ traditional ecstatic worship with a modern approach, blending the two for an unforgettable fervor.
Set in 18th-century England and America, the craftsmanship of Testament is undeniable. Anchored by Amanda Seyfried’s career-best performance as the title character, director of photography William Rexer’s camera follows the ecstatic dancing and singing of the Shakers with as much precision choreography as the performers put forward in their work. Nowhere is this more evident than in the film’s first large-scale musical number, which cuts together many of Ann’s first encounters with the Shakers as she comes to love their bombastic approach to religious inner life. The camera seems eager to let their excitement breathe, weaving in and out of their communal rituals, finding anything and everything of interest in their behavior. Thanks to editor Sofía Subercaseaux, these initial meetings are flawlessly interwoven with Ann’s harrowing experience of losing four children, none of them living past one year of age. The contrast between the spiritual catharsis and Ann’s emotional devastation makes it obvious what she sees in the group as they start to see more in her.
Many members of the group come to believe that Ann is the female representation of God. After she comes to believe this herself, — having overcome the grief of losing her children, the coldness of her husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott), and multiple imprisonments for noise complaints (the Shakers’ services do raise quite a ruckus) — she and her followers decide to embrace pre-Revolutionary War America’s promise of religious freedom and emigrate to New York. The singing and dancing continue, although the group as a whole starts to take on a slightly different tenor as they establish their new settlement and try to recruit new members. They do gain some new members, but many in the surrounding area are not convinced, including those who seek to stamp the group out by violent means.
By the point at which the film has reached its most conflict-heavy section, you feel a little woozy as a viewer, but in the best way possible. This is because the film is so well-executed when it comes to putting us in the headspace of Ann and her believers. It’s a whirlwind of a movement, one that feels equally poised to inspire and infuriate. As Ann, Seyfried is so committed to her beliefs that no matter what your religious leanings, it’s difficult not to root for her. I can’t speak to the film’s historical accuracy, but her survival through all of these trials and tribulations is beyond impressive, from sheerly a human-interest perspective. That actually seems to be the film’s lens on this entire saga: Ann is an admirable human being for making it through what she did, even if we might take issue with some of the ways she influenced people later on (illustrated in perhaps the film’s best scene, a more somber musical number about daily life in the settlement). The fact that this kind of nuanced analysis exists on the same plane as that woozy intoxication of Fastvold’s direction speaks to what an achievement this film is. You come to feel like you have lived a life in Ann’s shoes while keeping your own interpretation of said life intact. | George Napper
The 34th Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival runs Nov. 6-16, 2025 at various locations around St. Louis. Further information is available from the Cinema St. Louis web site.
