How Did They Miss This? ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ Deserves Better | FirstShowing.net

How Did They Miss This? ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ Deserves Better

by Tamara Khodova
December 22, 2025

So it’s that time of year again. The moment when awards season kicks into high gear and the entire internet collectively loses its mind over how or why some random critics group forgot to nominate their favorite movie or chose this person over that person or left this person out or didn’t vote for this film instead of that other one. The wailing usually reaches a fever pitch when the Oscars, the undisputed ruler of the season, finally enters the chat. I’m usually pretty zen about the whole thing. It’s impossible to honor every film, voters are only human, and let’s be honest, the “best” movies often lose to those with the deepest pockets and/or smartest marketing campaigns. But this year, I caught the awards season flu. I was genuinely floored when I saw the Oscar shortlists and found a grand total of zero mentions for The Testament of Ann Lee. And just like that, the beast inside me woke up, screaming out: “How could they possibly miss this film!?“

Deep down, I’m pretty sure know exactly why it happened. To be fair, even I was skeptical at first. When I heard that Mona Fastvold (the Norwegian director of The World to Come) and her husband & co-writer Brady Corbet (the director of the Oscar-winning The Brutalist last year) were making a film about one of the founders of the Shakers religious movement, I couldn’t help but wonder what drew them to this subject. It’s a niche topic, to say the least, and probably obscure to most audiences today. Who would spend their time on an art film about a religious sect? And wait, it’s a musical, too…?

This combo is a marketing department’s worst nightmare. I could almost understand it being overlooked for the major categories — Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, which are still in play (it still might get a few noms). But all these technical & craft categories? The stunning work of cinematographer William Rexer, composer Daniel Blumberg (who just won the Oscar earlier this year for The Brutalist), costume designer Małgorzata Karpiuk, production designer Ágnes Bobor, and so many talented artists were completely ignored. It’s especially baffling to see it missing from the music shortlists. I mean, it’s a musical. Hello!?

We can debate the marketing campaign from Searchlight Pictures and speculate about what went wrong, but one thing is crystal clear: the film is being widely misunderstood by those who’ve seen it so far. And for the sake of all of the incredible talent involved — and anyone who might miss out on a truly unique cinematic experience — I’m here to set the record straight.

When The Testament of Ann Lee first premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival a few months back, it caused a stir of confusion, even among seasoned critics. (Alex even wrote an entire editorial at Venice about misunderstanding the films there.) You’d think people who watch and analyze movies for a living would be unfazed, but many couldn’t seem to get past the film’s challenging elevator pitch. “Is this a movie about the founding of the Anglican Church?” one critic asked me. (For the record, the Shakers have nothing to do with the Anglican Church, but never mind.) The label “religious musical” became a barrier many couldn’t look past. But here’s the thing: ideologically, The Testament of Ann Lee has almost nothing to do with religion. It’s a film about emancipation, tolerance, and the freedom of the human spirit.

Imagine you’re a young woman named Ann (played by Amanda Seyfried) living in mid-18th century Manchester. You come from a working-class family, one of eight children. Since childhood, you’ve attended Quaker meetings with your parents, growing up deeply religious and largely uneducated. You were always uncomfortable with your sexuality, especially living and working in the city, surrounded by what you saw as “sin.” So when you came of age, you avoided marriage for as long as you could, until your father forced you to marry a blacksmith named Abraham (played Christopher Abbott). You bore him four children, and all of them died in infancy. Despite your crushing grief, your husband continued to pressure you into “sexual cohabitation,” and the weight of it all began to drive you mad.

In our time, a woman in such a situation could go to therapy, use contraception, or simply get a divorce and live on her own — though we have to admit, even today, many women don’t always take those paths. But for Ann Lee, who was never asked if she wanted to endure the agony of childbirth, grieve her dead children, or even have a sex life at all, the options were far more limited. In fact, she had none. But she did have one thing: a fierce, unshakeable (pun intended) faith. After a stint in jail, she declared herself to be the second coming of Christ — and his wife — and became the leader of a new branch of the Shaker movement. At the core of their belief was celibacy, complete equality between men and women, and worship through labor.

Whether Ann Lee invented this set of beliefs as a form of self-preservation or truly believed in them as divine is irrelevant. As Paul Verhoeven taught us in Benedetta (his 2021 film starring Virginie Efira), it doesn’t matter if your words are true; what matters is convincing yourself and others that they are. In short: today, you can just get a divorce. In 18th-century England, you had to start a new religion.

In a broader sense, The Testament of Ann Lee is about inner freedom — freedom from coercion, from the state, from war, and from civilization itself. The Shakers were a utopian movement built on radical ideals for their time: espousing pacifism, a communal lifestyle of togetherness, and a model of gender equality that they institutionalized as early as the 1780s. They were known for their simple living, innovative furniture and construction techniques, and the belief that labor itself was a form of prayer. In Fastvold’s portrayal, they appear almost like lambs of God — naive, pure, and utterly alien to violence.

It’s hard to imagine how such a gentle community could survive in our world, and indeed, many of them didn’t. The irony, of course, is that their journey from England to the New World was less an escape and more a relocation of their problems. They sought freedom from persecution, only to discover that the human capacity for violence and oppression is not bound by geography. Through the story of the Shakers, Fastvold speaks to a utopian dream of spiritual independence that was as fragile in the 18th century as it is today.

The Shakers earned their name from their unique form of worship — their services were ecstatic, involving trembling, shaking, dancing, and speaking in tongues. It was essentially the 18th century version of a rave, but for Jesus. Academy Award-winning composer Daniel Blumberg drew inspiration from actual Shaker hymns and the sounds of nature (read more here). The film’s sound is a mix of pre-recorded tracks, live singing from the set, and studio sessions. The result is a fragile, eclectic score that gets under your skin and perfectly captures the characters’ state of sensual ecstasy. These musical numbers, which sweep the viewer up like a current and induce a trance-like state, are the true heart of the film. You find yourself wanting to sing along, which makes you think: a Testament of Ann Lee karaoke night might not be such a bad idea.

For Amanda Seyfried, this was one of the most challenging roles of her career and she deserves acclaim. Her vocal style is a world away from any typical musical. The actress described it as something closer to “animal sounds” than melodic singing. And in The Testament of Ann Lee, Seyfried truly reaches a new level. She masterfully combines tenderness & softness with resilience & raw emotion. You can feel the passion, grief, and desperation in every note of her singing. And you thought she couldn’t top Mamma Mia?!

Cinematographer Will Rexer shot this on film, just like The Brutalist, and uses it not for epic scale, but for intimacy. In the best tradition of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Barry Lyndon, he frames his shots almost exclusively with natural light — the flame of a candle, the dim light from a window. Rexer alternates these static, pictorialist compositions with a handheld, “breathing” camera during moments of religious ecstasy.

The world within The Testament is intensely tangible and practical. Director Mona Fastvold depicts a brutal female corporeality with unflinching focus — childbirth, blood, lactation — not for shock value, but as an inseparable part of the experience that shaped her heroine. This same tactile sensuality extends to the world around them. The camera often lingers tenderly on textures: the rough weave of fabric, the smoothness of polished wood, the lightness of a bird’s feather. A few short scenes showing the Shakers weaving baskets or assembling chairs transform labor from routine into a genuinely sacred act.

It’s possible to sing the praises of its subtle poetry endlessly. My detailed exploration of the film’s artistic excellence isn’t an exercise in intellectual vanity; it’s an attempt to celebrate the sheer, breathtaking craft poured into every frame. Ultimately, Ann Lee is not what its label suggests — it is not a religious musical about a forgotten sect. It is a delicate and deeply felt study of the desperate human yearning for freedom. And for that reason alone, it is one of the most singular & essential films of the year. It deserves any & every award or accolade it may or may not collect, but above all deserves the admiration of audiences worldwide.

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