{"id":208888,"date":"2025-12-24T17:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208888\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T17:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T17:10:08","slug":"the-testament-of-ann-lee-movie-review-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/208888\/","title":{"rendered":"The Testament of Ann Lee movie review (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Husband-wife duo Mona Fastvold<\/a> and Brady Corbet<\/a> proved they make an excellent team with last year\u2019s American epic, \u201cThe Brutalist<\/a>,\u201d which they co-wrote with Corbet behind the camera. This year sees them penning yet another wide-spanning tale of ambition set against a colonial backdrop, this time with Fastvold at the helm and Amanda Seyfried<\/a> as the star. \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d is a large-scale production, mighty in detail, and Fastvold proves herself up to the challenge of her own aspirations, tackling the weighty biography with the same sort of labor-intensive dedication characteristic of its subject.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d takes us through the foundation of the Shakers practically from start to finish. It\u2019s around four decades condensed to just over two hours, and while the development of the Shakers from England to the New World is certainly at the fore, so is the crafting of Ann Lee\u2019s persona. She\u2019s steadfast and a little gritty. Presumably gifted with religious visions, she is believed to be the second coming of Christ, whom the Shakers believe takes both the form of a man and a woman. Her core values are preceded by a life marked by physical labor and an early-born aversion to intimacy due to witnessing her parents in the act. It\u2019s this dichotomy of the functions of the body\u2013the relationship between work and pleasure, labor and payoff\u2013that Fastvold molds into the center of her film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps most notably, the spellbinding Shaker movement, thanks to the film\u2019s choreographer, Celia Rowlson-Hall, takes excellent advantage of the film\u2019s musical genre. Hands beating on chests; arms outstretched to the skies; torsos heaving, feet stomping\u2013soundtracked by grunts and wails, it\u2019s all an embodiment of extreme catharsis. Its earthen quality foils the group\u2019s heavenly influences, and this contrast is riveting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The songs are just okay, though Seyfried\u2019s singing is undeniable. Her performance anchors the film. She is raw and open, torn wide apart and glowing. Inhabiting Ann\u2019s stoicism and commitment to the laws of her beliefs, there\u2019s also a palpable tenderness and vulnerability swimming in Seyfried\u2019s eyes. The accent work across the board is a bit shoddy, but in fairness, one kind of stops caring once the film reaches the next of many crescendos.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s chapters are narrated by Sister Mary (Thomasin Mackenzie). While it\u2019s clear that the narration serves as a tool for delivering so many decades\u2019 worth of information and context, it also lends itself to moments of reveling in the film\u2019s painterly qualities. Fastvold\u2019s direction, coupled with William Rexer\u2019s expert chiaroscuro, is reminiscent of the frames on museum walls. \u201cA place for everything, and everything in its place,\u201d is a dogma of Ann and Fastvold\u2019s framing, as the film\u2019s blocking gives way to numerous beautiful tableaus\u2013shots to remember.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And this remembrance is both in the intention and the failures of \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee.\u201d Fastvold\u2019s film feels like a tribute, an act of instilling memory. And yet, I\u2019d be dishonest to say that the film, on the whole, was very memorable. It is most certainly an expert display of craft: the script is generally nimble, the visuals are stunning, and the choreography is moving. But it is bloated in history and starving for persona. Ann Lee was pious and dedicated, but in this film\u2019s depiction, not much else. Therefore, the extended chapters of the film\u2019s framework become repetitive, as do its themes. There isn\u2019t a single performance in the bunch that can touch Seyfried\u2019s, leaving the film aching for chemistry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d will no doubt draw comparisons to \u201cThe Brutalist,\u201d and in many ways, almost seems to shoot for companion piece status. But what the latter possesses is a complexity and harmony that, across the board, this film fails to find. \u201cThe Testament of Ann Lee\u201d has its shining moments, but ultimately, its ambition outstrips Fastvold\u2019s execution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Husband-wife duo Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet proved they make an excellent team with last year\u2019s American epic,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-208888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}