The Testament of Ann Lee review – strikingly strange portrait of radically ecstatic Shaker leader

Venice film festivalAmanda Seyfried plays the 18th-century missionary who took her message to the New World, in Mona Fastvold’s elusive film‘Our ordeal is worth it!” This is the cry of one of the faithful in Mona Fastvold’s movie, co-written with her partner Brady Corbet, with whom she co-wrote The Brutalist. It is a vehement, fervent, striking but sometimes baffling drama about the historical figure of Ann Lee, who endured religious persecution in 18th-century England as leader of the fundamentalist Shaker movement.As the embodiment of Christ’s second coming, Lee took her radical message to the New World and in pre-revolutionary America founded an enduring community of souls, persecuted all over again by the new patriarchy for being a woman and a pacifist. Her Shakers were known among other things for their skill in stylishly elegant and minimalist furniture – although the connection with Christ’s profession is unstressed. Lee is played by Amanda Seyfried, with Lewis Pullman as her brother William and Christopher Abbott as her oppressive husband Abraham, who appears to be partial to a bit of BDSM where he gets to be a Christian dom in the marriage bed. Continue reading...

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