Musicals make people more uncomfortable than nearly any other genre. Countless stories exist of people groaning the moment they realize a motion picture involves people singing. Movie marketers are terrified of promoting that motion pictures, like Wonka, are actually musicals. This hostility has even infiltrated corners of the genre's modern form. Musical movies themselves now often feature characters making self-satirical "oh God, please, no singing!" jabs (see: Spirited).
I couldn't tell you why there's so much discomfort over this style of cinematic storytelling. Maybe it's because the very sight of human beings crooning about their feelings instantly jolts people away from reality. Perhaps general audiences are self-conscious about watching anything that's "silly". Whatever's behind it, I was reminded of people's chagrin with musicals at my Testament of Ann Lee screening. As the runtime wore on, attendees trickled out of the auditorium like water flowing from a barrel's fracture. There were also constant instances of people's phones/smart watches buzzing brightly or individuals scattering to the bathroom.
It was clear this crowd was uncomfortable with this period piece ballad littered with extravagant displays of singing and physicality. Me? I'm the weirdo who loves bravura musicals like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Better Man, and The Lure. Naturally, The Testament of Ann Lee was right up my alley. Better yet, the feature also channeled the bittersweet atmosphere of First Cow. It's like writer/director Mona Fastvold cooked this one up in a lab for me.
The Testament of Ann Lee's Story and Approach to Reality
Growing up in Manchester, Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) was raised to believe that there's a certain order to things. Women do what men want. Religion is used to inspire fear and hostility between people. As she grows up, Lee and her brother William (Lewis Pullman) become enamored with a new approach to religion from a group that eventually becomes known as the Shakers. These are souls who express themselves through elaborate "dance" routines and chants. After ceaseless hardship (including the loss of four children during childbirth), Lee becomes deeply entrenched in this religion.
That's a bit of an understatement, actually. She eventually becomes the movement's figurehead. Letting a woman serve as the centerpiece of a Christ-driven religion makes her coalition (which emphasizes non-violence, celibacy, and harmony between all people) a target. There's only one place where she and her people can fulfill their fullest potential: America. Here, Ann Lee and her followers build up land where they can realize all their wildest dreams. Unfortunately, new forms of turmoil and aggressive oppression also await them.
Fastvold and fellow screenwriter Brady Corbet keep viewers constantly on their toes throughout Ann Lee with compelling contradictions. For instance, though Ann Lee's high stature in her religious community is apparent, Fastvold's camera doesn't hold back in emphasizing this woman's vulnerability. Her most distraught moments in incarceration or during childbirth reinforce how we're watching an often endangered human being.
Simultaneously, this entire film is narrated by Lee's friend Mary Partington (Thomasin McKenzie), who emphasizes how certain aspects of Lee's life are now lost to legend. Did she speak in just 12 different languages in one confrontation with English authorities...or 72? Perhaps she just rambled in tongues on that fateful night? Partington's narration and the visuals leave this ambiguous. Equally uncertain are segments like John Hocknell (David Cale) pointing his finger outward and harmonizing as he pursues the ideal terrain for Lee's colony. Partington suggests this particular sequence is based on legend...could it have actually happened this way?
Whether or not Lee is actually imbued with the power of God is even left up to viewers. Throughout The Testament of Ann Lee, one can simultaneously perceive divine and practical explanations of various "holy visions" or psychological breakthroughs. The duality and quietly shifting definition of "reality" don't just provide an inspired bedrock for an unorthodox musical. It also makes for a sublime template for a religious-based movie. I remember as a child getting in trouble with church higher-ups for daring to ask if stories like Jonah and the Whale were allegories rather than straightforward facts. With The Testament of Ann Lee, Fastvold encourages the inquiries that I was encouraged to stifle as an adolescent.
Bouncing between reality and legend, not to mention blurring the line between the two, Ann Lee ingeniously taps into religious mythology's enigmatic qualities. Plus, it makes for a captivating feature.
All Hail Amanda Seyfried
Impressively, even while oscillating between surrealism and reality, Fastvold unwaveringly makes Ann Lee consistently transfixing. Part of that comes from the inspired casting of Amanda Seyfried in the role. This performer's always carried such an immense soulfulness in her physicality and vocals. Even in a frothy good time like Mamma Mia!, her voice carried palpable humanity and yearning in songs like "Honey, Honey." She ropes you into her characters' interior worlds and makes their longing and ambitions so real they might as well be your own. Those gifts are why she's such a great anchor and audience point-of-view character for Jennifer's Body, for example.
Here, Seyfried's performance, like Fastvold's script, doesn't lose sight of Ann Lee as a human being. You can see rich, heartbreaking pain in her eyes (rooted in all the loss she's suffered) when she's cuddling with a friend against a snowy window, even as Lee's voice speaks of resilience and ambition. Seyfried's engrossing presence depicting Lee giving grandiose speeches or intimately talking to newcomers, meanwhile, makes it apparent why anyone would follow Lee as a religious leader. Whether it's shouting to the rafters about the world's injustices or making fresh faces feel like they're the only two people in a crowded room, Seyfried realizes each side of the character marvelously. The down-to-earth and mythological versions of Lee both come so naturally to her.
As for the sequences where Seyfried really leaves it all on the floor, there's really no other word for her work other than "jaw-dropping." A musical number entitled "Hunger and Thirst" especially excels in this department. Here, Seyfried (in a largely unbroken single-take) portrays a starved Lee writhing on a prison floor reaffirming her surrender to a higher spiritual power. With no props, a detailed background, or extravagant physicality to draw from, Seyfried still more than justifies the camera's unblinking nature. How could one look away from such a stripped-down depiction of a human being's enduring spirit?
This whole sequence is a masterful showcase of acting-based conviction, yet while watching The Testament of Ann Lee, it didn't register as that. I just perceived this sequence as a raw look at Ann Lee's dedication to her deity. Seyfried's talents are so immense that they never distract or overwhelm the story and character she's servicing, the sign of a truly legendary actor.
Luscious Visuals And Melancholy Themes Are a Holy Triumph In Ann Lee
Given that this feature hails from the same creative team behind The Brutalist, you know Testament of Ann Lee was going to deliver on the glorious imagery front. Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley and The World to Come (Fastvold's directorial debut) lenser André Chemetoff sat this one out, which means cinematographer William Rexer gets to tackle his biggest feature film to date. Shockingly, his grandiose Ann Lee visuals are an improvement on his camerawork from three of Movie 43's segments. There's so much painterly beauty scattered throughout this title, particularly in how Fastvold and Rexer lean into the distinctive moods evoked by natural weather. Elements like melancholy snowfall or blisteringly hopeful sunlight work wonders in informing some of the feature's most unforgettable tableaus.
The theatricality in the cinematography echoes the grandiose sensibilities of The Testament of Ann Lee as a whole film. Several sequences, namely anytime hordes of people begin to fiercely dance and harmonize together, are absolutely stunning in their gusto. Everything is being left on the floor in these set pieces, and it's remarkable to witness. An inevitable, devastating climactic sequence where everything goes to Hell, and Ann Lee is attacked, is similarly transfixing (albeit for more heartbreaking reasons).
This and other Ann Lee scenes practically grabbed my head and commanded my attention. It's always extraordinary to experience instances where a motion picture truly comes alive, and it feels like you're barely holding on. Fastvold's filmmaking impressively overwhelmed and captivated me, an experience only enhanced by watching these images on a grand big screen.
It is in that shattering finale that The Testament of Ann Lee's melancholy core is reinforced. Like First Cow, this is a story about what attributes can't survive in Europe or America. Subverting rigid gender norms? Emphasizing kindness instead of cyclical violence? Daring to suggest we're all equal and worthy of love? Those won't thrive in colonial spaces built on genocide and repressive religion. Fastvold's vision of Ann Lee depicts hostilities against her as a precursor to the motivations behind subsequent American horrors like the Tulsa Race Massacre, the murder of Wyatt Outlaw, the Lavender Scare, the murder of Renee Good by ICE agents, and so many other events.
Anyone who dares to "challenge" white male power structures, whether by active protest or simply existing. will be brutalized. Like those two men at the heart of First Cow who just want to make biscuits and tend to a cow, Ann Lee's hopeful vision of religion is at odds with a crueler, larger world. Her dream cannot last. That adds an extra aching core to this beautifully-realized movie, not to mention a center that's tragically very relevant. A bunch of men getting fantatically violent over what kind of genitalia a woman (in this case Ann Lee) has...why does that sound familiar?
Once more, The Testament of Ann Lee astonishes in how many seemingly paradoxical plates it juggles with such finesse. Resonating as so horrifically relevant to post-1700s American events doesn't deprive Ann Lee and these characters of their emotional immediacy. Their world still registers as so beautifully immersive and discernibly 18th century. Chalk part of that up to the terrific visuals. The way light seeps into interior domains in this pre-electricity world, for instance, really makes one feel like they've stepped into a time machine. Committed work from the stacked ensemble cast also goes a long way towards making Ann Lee's period piece backdrop work. Everyone speaks in jagged accents (combinations of Irish and British accents, specifically) and an old-timey vernacular that aren't polished up to make Ann Lee and company sound more "accessible" to modern audiences.
Whether it's in its critical examination of America's history, its most bravura set pieces, or just the outstanding costume and production design (props to Malgorzata Karpiuk and Sam Bader, respectively, on those two departments), The Testament of Ann Lee astonished me. This movie's ambitions are so grand that it even pulls off some humorous moments (namely, some bits centered on John praying) without upsetting the delicate tone. Paradoxical creative impulses are executed with grace here from top to bottom. After her striking and unflinching directorial debut, Fastvold has returned with an even more ambitious yet similarly striking filmmaking accomplishment. If you're adverse to musical cinema in general, Ann Lee won't be your cup of tea. For the rest of us, who prefer "Naatu Naatu" and Phantom of the Paradise to "gritty reality," come bask in this sensational filmmaking.
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