A year ago, we got a movie called The Brutalist. It was a heavy and harrowing historical epic about the American Dream and life as an immigrant. The film was primarily marketed on the name of writer/director/producer Brady Corbett, though his spouse/creative partner Mona Fastvold shared writing and producing credits.
The Testament of Ann Lee is yet another Corbett/Fastvold project, similar in scope and themes, but now it’s Fastvold in the director’s seat. The end result is easier to watch, but not by much. It’s shorter by over an hour, that helps.
We lay our scene in the mid-18th century, shortly before the American Revolution. The film primarily involves the Shakers — an offshoot of the Quaker movement — so called because of how they used music, dance, and other such movements in their worship. Moreover, while the Quakers were famously anti-slavery, the Shakers went one step further. On the logic that all humans are made in the Lord’s image, it follows that God must be both male and female. So not only did the Shakers believe in sexual equality, but some went so far as to believe that Jesus will be reborn as a woman when the Second Coming finally happens.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the Shakers believed in absolute chastity. Any kind of fornication — even between spouses, even for the purpose of childbirth — was the root of all evil, the cause of all suffering, strictly forbidden. This is a likely reason why the Shaker Movement never really caught on.
Amanda Seyfried plays Ann Lee, a foundational figure of the Shaker Movement. Long story short, Lee suffered an unhappy marriage (with Christopher Abbott playing her husband) and giving birth to four kids who never lived past infancy. With nothing else to live for, Lee devoted her entire being to the Shaker faith, and spent some time in prison for religious persecution. She came out with a following ready to believe her claims that she was at once the sister, wife, and reincarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Naturally, this was met with renewed religious persecution. Thus Lee and her disciples fled to set up their own colony in the New World. Little did they know that New England was already famous for its witch trials. Oh, and there’s that trifling little Revolutionary War coming up.
Right off the bat, we’ve got a huge problem here: It’s a cast entirely comprised of religious fanatics. In particular, we’ve got a protagonist with a single-minded devotion to her religious beliefs. Everything she says and does comes back to her precepts and prophecies, with no room in her mind or heart or soul for anything else. It makes for a regrettably one-note protagonist to watch.
To be clear, it’s not like the film is entirely void of conflict. The celibacy issue is an especially contentious point among the Shakers. But even then, Ann Lee is the Messiah, whatever she says goes, and any conflict is quickly resolved according to her will. The drama is especially lacking because Ann herself has no stake in the outcome — she doesn’t remotely care what or who she loses in the process of anything she does or decides. Literally nothing else matters to her except for serving God as she sees fit until she’s finally reunited in Heaven with her four lost kids.
I might add that even aside from the celibacy point, there are a number of problems with this religious movement that are never addressed. To wit, it’s all well and good to say that all humans are God’s children made in His image, and that’s why slavery and persecution on the basis of race or sex is wrong. But on the other hand, we have a religious movement based on the infallibility of one person and everyone else is subservient to her — where’s the equality in that?
Moreover, due to the heavy emphasis on chastity, there’s a noticeable divide between men and women. By which I mean the two sexes are not allowed to cohabitate, share dressing rooms, share bedrooms, etc. Even when they’re dancing as part of their service, the men and women are all separated by gender into their own groups. So it’s separate but equal, which is of course inherently unequal.
And not to keep harping on the celibacy issue, but nobody ever thinks to ask the blindingly obvious question of how any kind of system could possibly be sustainable in the long term when childbirth isn’t an option. I might add that sexual equality without sexual freedom doesn’t amount to much. Moreover, given Mother Ann’s own tragic history of heartbreak after repeatedly giving birth to dead infants, one has to wonder if chastity really is the will of God or if Ann is simply venting her own trauma onto her disciples.
None of these questions and issues are ever sufficiently addressed. And honestly, it’s all beside the point. The point is that however contradictory and short-sighted this religion is, Ann and her followers have every right to believe it nonetheless. They’re not hurting anyone and they don’t want much, just a place where they can be left in peace to live to worship on their own terms. What we’ve really got here is an immigrant story, made all the more powerful by the fact that Ann and her followers are literally coming over and building their own town at the very time when America itself is being founded.
Even so, this remains a difficult film to watch. Seriously, every other shot in this movie is so oversaturated in darkness that it’s literally difficult to watch. It’s hard for me to properly appreciate the songs and dances and big dramatic moments when I can barely see them! I need hardly add that when the scene is supposed to be some huge moment of spiritual jubilation and it’s drenched in shadows, that doesn’t exactly help the intended mood.
Then again, there are times when the conflicting tones work. For instance, this is a movie about characters who resolutely hate sex. Thus we get nude scenes and sex scenes with Amanda Seyfried that are outright boring and anti-erotic. That shouldn’t be possible, but it was done here and it suits the film.
I’m having a difficult time grading The Testament of Ann Lee. Sure, Amanda Seyfried does solid work here, but she did better work with a more dynamic and interesting character in The Housemaid just a month ago. I was honestly more impressed with Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie, and even Christopher Abbott.
The big problem I keep running into here is that everything this movie gets right is overshadowed (quite literally) by what it gets wrong. The actors are all great, but they’re playing fanatical one-note characters. The immigrant angle and the religious freedom angle are both interesting, but both are undercut by the hypocrisies and logical lapses in their precious religious doctrine, none of which are ever addressed. And while I’m sure the production design and choreography are all sterling, it’s hard to appreciate them when half of every other shot is solid goddamn black.
Overall, I’m not convinced that this is the best movie these same talents could’ve made on this particular subject. It’s a no for me.