Memos From the Film Society: “The Testament of Ann Lee”

It is often said that film is a visual medium. To some extent, this is true, as a movie without some visual expression would generally not be deemed a movie. But this idea cannot be true in its entirety, as so many films — even from the beginning of the medium, when the sound was not baked into the print — feature music and sound at the very core of their being. A movie is not a purely visual experience; instead, it is audiovisual, with some movies moving their audience to a rhythm and a beat that cannot be captured by sight alone. Mona Fastvold’s new film “The Testament of Ann Lee” is one of those films.

Fresh off the heels of co-writing last year’s “The Brutalist” with her partner Brady Corbet, Fastvold iterates on a similar biographical story of one immigrant coming to America for a new life. There are three major differences between the two movies; however, with the first being that this story is about a real person who lived in Revolution-era New York. The second is that the titular Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) is a female preacher rather than a male architect. And the third, and most bold reinvention, is that the movie is a musical, with an original score composed by fellow “Brutalist” alum Daniel Blumberg.

Ann Lee’s story fits this new style perfectly. She is a preacher of Christianity and a claimant to many a religious vision, but she is also perhaps the most prominent member of the then-rising Shaker movement. This sect’s members were most known for their asceticism, vows of celibacy, and their complex prayer routines, which commonly involved loud noise and rhythmic movements to hymns. These are, quite simply, the key ingredients for an old-school song and dance musical number, and Fastvold peppers the screenplay with awe-inspiring recreations as much as she can.

At the center of almost every scene and number stands Seyfried’s towering presence in her central role as Ann Lee. She gives everything in a performance that can only properly be described as revelatory. The only musical moments in the film not given over to the ecstasy of the Shakers as a whole are delivered in simple close-ups on her; she is so grand that they seem all the larger. Seyfried is no stranger to the movie musical, with memorable supporting turns in “Mamma Mia!” (2008) and “Les Misérables” (2012). But here she carries all the thematic and musical core of the movie in her eyes and her tone, embodying the devotion of her character as devotion to the movie itself.

Her performance is incredible that one can almost forget how thin the screenplay around it really is. Despite all the flashy attempts to distract — which pretty much all succeed — and the gorgeously high production values, the story follows an extremely standard biopic formula. Ann Lee’s friend and follower Mary (Thomasin McKenzie) over-narrates every elided detail as the story moves linearly from birth to death, all while the narrative stays at a distance that prevents any characters from sticking in the mind or actually letting themselves be known. Although it is well-researched, to the extent that the first portion of the film’s end credits directly cites its sources, the Shakers and the movie as a whole never elevate that much beyond the facts to something more bold and interesting.

But this, of course, is taking the movie on too much of a strictly visual basis. Fastvold’s filmmaking is structured around the ability of music and movement to come together in one audiovisual experience. In that way, the film almost mimics the prayers of the Shakers themselves, with the words and the story mattering much less than the feelings that they inspire. The first major number, titled simply on the soundtrack as “Worship,” is purely wordless and, like most of Blumberg’s songs, derived from actual surviving Shaker music and hymns. Fastvold captures the scene in a wide shot, allowing the characters to move in and out of frame in a uniquely wild choreography. The audience, via the camera, becomes a part of the dance, and one naturally feels the same ecstasy as all the other revelers.

This feeling looms so large that, whenever Fastvold deprives it from you in the requisite scenes of expository dialogue, you desperately want it back. The good news is that there is always another song, dance, or both waiting in what is likely just the next scene. Besides, at least a little bit of that religiosity of feeling can be found at all times in Seyfried’s eyes.

If there is an emotional core in the film aside from the music, it is most often in the relationship between Ann Lee and her brother William (Lewis Pullman). Pullman also performs and sings with plenty of skill, playing a repressed gay man turned devoted preacher in his sister’s community. All the most real moments in the film lie in the conversations and glances that the two share, a deep bond formed in common love for each other and for their belief. Fastvold knows the moments where the grandeur of biography and prayer may lose her audience, and keeps them together throughout as a firm anchor.

Even if the exact connection between the three modes of biography, prayer, and personal is not perfect, it cannot be overstated how much of an accomplishment Fastvold has achieved in creating all three on a small independent budget. Every single emotion is felt at least in part due to the full devotion of Seyfried, Pullman, McKenzie, and every other dancer on screen. And, on top of this, the full-bodied work of Blumberg and the rest of the production crew behind the camera. The shaping of her audiovisual wonder could not have been done alone; the audience plays an equal part in it. It’s enough to make you a follower yourself.