For Ann Lee, the visionary leader of the Shakers, fornication was the express lane to hell. So fiercely were these beliefs enforced, her congregation had to adopt children rather than create their own. For their Church to prosper, the Shakers needed keep making converts among the ranks of sinners. Small wonder the sect has struggled to maintain its numbers. In the mid-19th century, there were more than 4,000 believers spread across 18 communities, today there are only two professed Shakers, residing in a village in Maine.
This may not sound like a promising subject, but Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet, who gave us The Brutalist (2024), have created a movie unlike anything you will have ever seen before. This time it’s Fastvold in the director’s chair, but as with the previous effort it’s a husband-and-wife collaboration. The Testament of Ann Lee is a bio pic of a remarkable woman, an historical epic, a study of faith and fanaticism, and – believe it or not – a musical.
The story is rigidly structured, proceeding by chapters that show how the Shakers find their origins in Manchester in the mid-1700s, cross the ocean to America, and make a new home in the wilderness of up-state New York. Throughout this journey, both physical and spiritual, the true believers grow progressively more devoted to their religious mission while seeking to avoid persecutions stirred up by their manner of worship.