Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee

Mona Fastvold, the Norwegian filmmaker best known for her creative collaborations with her husband, Brady Corbet, is back behind the camera for her third feature film, an ecstatic and somewhat eccentric biopic of the religious leader Ann Lee. The Testament of Ann Lee tells the story of the eponymous Ann Lee, an 18th-century Mancunian woman who rose to prominence as a founder of the Shaker religious movement, an offshoot of Quakerism marked by ecstatic worship, known as “shaking”, celibacy, and exquisite craftsmanship.

Amanda Seyfried stars as Ann, an absolutely ludicrous choice if you’re trying to convince anyone that Ann was born into humble circumstances, but a more sensible choice when paired with Fastvold’s painterly compositions and lush lighting, aided by the cinematography of William Rexer. Seyfried’s blonde hair glows like gold, her Hollywood face is bathed in luminous light, at times rendering Ann as a figure in a classical painting, an angel highlighted amongst mere mortals. As embodied by Seyfried, Ann never quite seems of the earth, which plays into her eventual role as a spiritual leader believed to be the female personification of God.

Testament is a bit of a strange film, at once full of bold choices, such as using song and dance numbers to represent the Shakers’ ecstatic worship, an effective choice that underscores how disconcerting this loud and at times physically overwhelming style of worship is to the more stifled Anglicans making up the population around Ann in mid-18th century Manchester. (Is Seyfried’s Mancunian accent good? It certainly convinced me, but maybe actual Mancunians feel differently.) Composer Daniel Blumberg combines re-imaginings of real Shaker hymns with original compositions to create the soundtrack, which is haunting and eerie, stirring the soul with simplicity and beauty, an apt musical accompaniment for a religious movement marked by  dedication to expert craftsmanship.

But at other times, Testament, which is co-written by Fastvold and Corbet, is frustratingly pedestrian. It’s a cradle-to-grave biopic that is strangely incurious about Ann’s inner life, even for all that Fastvold includes religious visions and hallucinations, she does not excavate Ann’s inner life beyond surface facts. Ann, raised in a one-room hovel with an abundance of siblings, is a bystander to her parents’ marital relations, and as a child, is disgusted. This contributes to her later abhorrence of sex and sexuality, which leads her to add “celibacy” to her brand of Quakerism, a schism that eventually leads to the separation of Quakerism and the Shakers.

It’s such a foundational part of her religious beliefs that it is strange Fastvold almost glosses over it. Many people, including Ann’s own siblings, lived in such circumstances in that era, and they weren’t all disgusted by sex. But even as a child, long before her own intimate tribulations begin, Ann is revolted by the body. Why? All we get is that Ann’s husband, Abraham (a moody Christopher Abbott), has proclivities his wife does not share but cannot refuse, which compounds her existing disgust, but we never really explore the root of it. 

Much more effective is the presence of pregnancy trauma and infant loss. Ann bears four children, all of whom die in infancy. Eventually, she is hospitalized for despondency following her final child’s death (warning for graphic scenes of childbirth and loss). Celibacy, then, becomes a way out of ever going through that pain again. When other women confess feelings at Shaker meetings that we today recognize as signs of post-partum depression, it creates an underlying and unifying scaffolding for the movement’s unique appeal to women. The Shakers and their celibacy become a way out of post-partum depression in an era with no language to address or even recognize the issue. 

Testament is defined by these “two steps forward, one step back” decisions. There are so many interesting creative choices throughout the film, Fastvold is really swinging for the fences thematically and narratively, but then there will be something completely pedestrian, even annoying about the film, such as the narration. Thomasin McKenzie stars as Mary Partington, one of Ann’s staunchest followers; she also narrates the film. The narration is completely redundant, reciting what we are watching Ann do on the screen, even at times saying dialogue along with her. For a film that is so much about the mystery and beauty of faith, this is a very unmysterious, unbeautiful inclusion that feels like Fastvold and Corbet don’t trust the audience to understand their story. 

But for the most part, The Testament of Ann Lee is an ecstatic ritual itself, a lushly realized film, matching its extraordinary subject with some big, bold filmmaking. The occasional spanner in the works, such as the graceless narration and facile treatment of Ann’s interiority, does not bring down what is a truly singular film, a musical that bridges the gap between sonic and visual language to represent a deeply personal and mysterious process of worship. Amanda Seyfried gives a career-best performance as Ann, she and Fastvold matching energy from behind and in front of the camera to bring to life one of the most unique films of the year.

The Testament of Ann Lee will play exclusively in select theaters from December 25, 2025.