One of the unfortunate truisms of cinema is that most any presentation of a Christian religion onscreen tends to be a less than flattering portrayal. I enjoyed the movie CONCLAVE last year and despite an ultimately uplifting message of faith and forgiveness, the road to such conclusions was pulpy and knotty at best. The same issues exist in the new drama THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE. Ostensibly a biopic about Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), the British-born evangelist who came to America in 1774 and created the Shaker movement, it portrays that version of faith as off-putting, rigid and overreactive. As for the moments where she and her brethren break into song and dance during service to praise the Lord, those moments feel less like glorification and more like histrionics. The film’s heart may be in the right place, but most of it is an absolute downer. And I remained unmoved.
Ann’s biography isn’t one that lends itself to much positivity. She came to view the death of her four children in infancy not as a testament to the tough times in impoverished times, but rather as divine punishment for fornication. By the time she arrives in New York, Ann has renounced the gratification of the flesh and as her flock builds, hanging on her every word, they too come to regard Christianity as a religion of no. No sex. No frivolity. No sin. We are all sinners but isn’t a tenet of faith that we are forgiven and can therefor carry on trying to be better?
Director Mona Fastvold, who also wrote the screenplay with her partner Brady Corbet, the director of THE BRUTALIST, does show how difficult it is for Ann’s followers to live up to her strict standards. Her husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott) eventually leaves her, and Ann’s brother William (Lewis Pullman) abandons his gay lover. The Shaker faith comes with a cost, even if the “glorious noise” they make unto the Lord makes for well-edited and choreographed “musical numbers” here. Seyfried’s film musical pedigree (MAMA MIA, LES MISERABLES) anchors those numbers, and they are compelling in their way, erring just this side on something that might feel right at home in WICKED.
Seyfried has a admirable legacy as a musical ingenue, but she also has played a number of loons on screen too. From HBO’s THE DROPOUT, where she won many awards playing tech baddie Elizabeth Holmes, to the current runaway melodrama THE HOUSEMAID in theaters, where she plays a seemingly psychotic, suburban housewife, Seyfried brings the cra-cra. She aces the role of Ann Lee too, unafraid to show the full-bore obsession of the zealot’s fragile psyche. Such a commitment didn’t make me like Ann Lee, but it did ensure my admiration for the actress.
The same idea applies to the film. I didn’t enjoy it very much, but I did respect the artistry, period details, and commitment to telling this fraught tale. Granted, it didn’t do much to sway me to the Shaker version of the glorification of God, but it certainly showed the limits in worshiping a cult leader who thinks their path is the only road to salvation.
