‘The Testomony of Ann Lee’ evaluate: Amanda Seyfried burns brightly

The act of religion, of believing, is by definition one thing that may’t be seen. Spiritual devotion is troublesome to seize on movie. “The Testomony of Ann Lee,” a portrait of the lady who led the motion often known as the Shakers from England to America within the 1700s, transforms the religious into one thing bodily by motion and music, making a most uncommon musical and a genuinely exceptional film.

Directed by Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote the script together with her companion, Brady Corbet, the movie comes rapidly after their collaboration on “The Brutalist,” which was directed by Corbet. Throughout tasks that additionally embody Fastvold’s “The World to Come” and Corbet’s “The Childhood of a Chief” and “Vox Lux,” they proceed to craft finely detailed historic fictions which have each a sweep and a specificity, made on budgets which can be startlingly modest for what they handle to get on-screen. Their ongoing collaboration makes for an eclectic and interesting physique of labor.

However “Ann Lee” just isn’t “The Brutalist Half II” and Fastvold positively has her personal pursuits as a filmmaker — specifically how the world has traditionally been skeptical of ladies, disregarding their company and worth by attempting to put them in limiting, prescribed roles. “Ann Lee” as a film and Ann Lee as a personality burst open these preconceptions.

Performed with a daring fervor by Amanda Seyfried, Ann Lee suffers the lack of 4 youngsters of their infancy, which causes her to show away from her uncaring husband (Christopher Abbott). As a part of her rising awakening, she involves imagine that celibacy brings one nearer to God. As her personal beliefs start to take idiosyncratic form, Lee begins to interact a number of followers. Her trustworthy brother (an affecting Lewis Pullman) begins to evangelise the gospel of her teachings, serving to to develop their congregation. The story, divided into three chapters, follows the beginnings of the Shakers in Manchester, England, then their arduous transatlantic journey and the way they settled in America.

The musical numbers, akin to they’re, are riveting: our bodies transferring throughout the body and across the digital camera with a mixture of untamed vitality and angular precision. Working in live performance, Fastvold, choreographer Celia Rowlson-Corridor, composer Daniel Blumberg and cinematographer William Rexer have created a language of devotional motion and music that’s each plausible and otherworldly.

There’s something uniquely tangible within the sequences of worship with music and dance, as for those who really feel it together with your physique as a lot as watch or pay attention together with your eyes and ears. Every of the dance numbers feels distinctive whereas additionally serving some goal in creating the story: from an early benefactor’s house or the deck of a ship, to a forest or assembly home.

Relatively than spinning off in numerous instructions, “The Testomony of Ann Lee” is held collectively by the resonant and dedicated efficiency of Seyfried, who continues to show herself an actor of astonishing depth. Additionally at present within the home thriller “The Housemaid,” she has proven an incredible vary and flexibility, from musicals (“Les Misérables”) to her Oscar-nominated position in “Mank” and Emmy-winning flip in “The Dropout.” (Plus, she is a pleasant presence on the talk-show circuit as simply herself.) Right here, Seyfried captures the inside battle of Ann Lee’s torment and trauma together with the ecstatic launch of her spiritual observe.

Whereas “The Brutalist” was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, “The Testomony of Ann Lee” has already been excluded from a number of shortlists in classes the place it could appear simply aggressive: rating, authentic music and cinematography. It’s a wholesome reminder that, whereas it’s heartening when worthwhile accomplishments obtain awards recognition, when a movie does not discover favor with voting our bodies, the power and conviction of the work stays. The revelations of “Ann Lee” will lengthy outlast the storms of any given awards season.

A gesture that’s seen all through the movie is for Seyfried to succeed in out, arms outstretched. (It has develop into a key picture within the promotion of the movie as nicely.) This sense of greedy for extra, reaching out to one thing simply out of vary or presumably not even there, is central to the film. Stretching to make a movie of this scale, ambition and imaginative and prescient, Fastvold has grabbed maintain of one thing genuinely singular.