I have, for one reason or another, been unable to go to the movies for the past couple weeks. Sometimes it was winter weather. Sometimes it was just what was playing. I almost got to Is This Thing On? a week or two ago, but there was some kind of sprinkler malfunction at the AMC when I arrived, so they gave me a free pass for a future showing of something. I was looking to go see No Other Choice before the big snow hits overnight, but when I went to buy a ticket on my AMC app, I saw I got a little confused over the showtime and the showtime I wanted was an hour earlier and about six minutes before I checked the app. So, I opted to see The Testament of Ann Lee. Why not? I usually like Amanda Seyfried in whatever I see her in.
I am not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I got.
As explained by a Shaker narrator who addresses the camera with one good eye and eventually revealed to be Ann Lee’s friend/follower Mary Partington (Thomasin McKenzie), Ann Lee was born in Manchester, England in 1736. Shadowed almost her entire life by her younger brother William, Ann just had this idea that sex was a sin, mostly from witnessing her parents doing it at one point while already having what looks like a dozen kids. When Ann grows up to become Seyfriend, she, William (Lewis Pullman), and her niece Nancy (Viola Prettejohn) join a branch of the Quakers nicknamed the Shakers because they do a lot of dancing. Ann marries a blacksmith (Christopher Abbott) with a taste for certain sort of sex acts, but circumstances send Ann to an asylum where she has a series of visions that work with Shaker theology that says that since Jesus was a man, the Second Coming would be from a woman, and Ann is declared a prophet, given the title of “mother,” and she basically says the only sin is sex.
Ann eventually heads to America with some followers and sets up show there, all where visions drive her to where she believes God wants her to be. Not all of her followers are necessarily into the “no sex” thing, but that just means they have to leave without any further fuss and never return. Along the way, Ann loses followers, but some stay loyal for their entire lives, and she never loses her certainty that she is speaking the will of God. Also, the movie might be considered a musical.
I don’t want to sound flippant here, but there are multiple long montage scenes where characters sing what I presume as Shaker hymns, often with Shaker dancing going on at times. There’s a lot of choreography going on here, and the movie does more or less play Ann’s revelations as straight. Is she really seeing visions from God? Maybe, but the narrator Mary is a Shaker who believes Ann is a prophet or the Second Coming or some such, so whether or not Ann got these revelations, the people telling the story within the movie believe she is, and that’s what counts.
It also means I wasn’t sure what was happening at times. Perhaps this was director Mona Fastvold’s way of simulating religious ecstasy through the medium of film. There are just moments, early in the movie, where McKenzie’s narration, the loud soundtrack, and my own tinnitus made it hard for me to follow what characters were saying. I eventually figured out what the movie seemed to be doing, and as McKenzie’s character appeared more on-screen, the less she narrated the movie, to the point where I wasn’t even aware that they were the same character.
But was the movie good? Well, I don’t think this is the sort of movie you “enjoy” so much as “experience” to think about later. I can’t say I liked this one, but I can appreciate what the director was trying to do. This was a testament to a woman whose followers believed to be someone who spoke for God. The story treats her that way, showing a woman who travails are sometimes not that difficult for her and may be only a momentary set-back, always with the idea that she was getting through because she was God’s chosen instrument. Just maybe keep that in mind if you opt to see it.
Grade: A-
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