BRIAN VINER: Yes Seyfried shines, but these Shaking Quakers didn’t stir me
The Will of Ann Lee (15, 137 minutes)
Verdict: I won’t shake you
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert (12A, 90 minutes)
Verdict: It will shake you
The last film co-written by Mona Fastvold and her husband, Brady Corbet, was The Brutalist (2024), a punk-numbing epic about a Hungarian Jew who survives the Holocaust and becomes a famous architect in post-war America.
Now the pair have teamed up again, this time to bring us The Testament Of Ann Lee, a hugely intense drama set in the 18th century but also about religion, prejudice, feminism and architecture. Fair play to Corbet-Fastvolds; They found a very nice place.
Corbet directed Brutalist but now it’s Fastvold’s turn and together with cinematographer William Rexer, they have made a film that is, at times, truly breathtaking.
Except for Thomas Gainsborough’s paintings, the 1700s have never looked this good.
In the title role, Amanda Seyfried gives a hugely impressive and utterly committed performance, maintaining a convincing northern England accent throughout.
Ann Lee was a Lancastrian leader of the Shaker movement; They were initially known as the ‘Shaking Quakers’ for their convulsing and twitching in enthusiastic celebration of the divine, and later, somewhat more long-winded, as the United Community of Believers in the Second Coming of Christ.
The Testament of Ann Lee follows the Lancastrian leader of the ‘Shaking Quakers’ until he is taken away for witchcraft
The film follows Ann and her band of devoted followers, who believe she is the embodiment of the second coming, as they sing and tremble from the dark demonic mills of Manchester to a settlement on the Hudson River, undaunted even by the mid-Atlantic waves.
The songs are adapted from actual Shaker spirituals, but I wonder if Ann and her siblings are as harmoniously and magnificently choreographed as they are here, with a sort of Stephen Sondheim take on their ecstasy.
Still, if nothing else, this picture should leave you with a greatly enhanced knowledge of the Shakers, and especially of Ann, who made abstinence a cornerstone of her religion…we are led to believe that she was unreasonably unaffected by both the tragedy of losing her four babies before they were one year old and her husband Abraham’s fondness for oral sex and sado-masochism.
‘No one can reach God while struggling in the lust of the body,’ he thought. Maybe he would think differently if he were 50 percent less sensual?
Abraham is played by Christopher Abbott, and Ann’s devoted brother William is played by Lewis Pullman; Thomasin McKenzie stars as his devoted student, Mary, and also serves as the narrator. Everything is extremely well acted and, as I said, very pleasing to the eye.
It is also fascinating to see how the minimalist principles of Shaker architecture and furniture evolved.
But I found it rather bleak dramatically, although there was some liveliness towards the end when Ann is taken away and accused of witchcraft.
‘She longed to find purpose amidst the dullness of her fate,’ says Mary of young Ann, while still stuck in Manchester, and I’m afraid I felt the same at Monday’s press screening.
There was nothing boring about the twitching and jiggling celebrated on EPiC: Elvis Presley in concert. Baz Luhrmann’s documentary makes an intriguing companion piece to his superb 2022 biopic Elvis; in fact, its origins lie in the research he did for that drama.
Baz Luhrmann’s documentary is an intriguing companion to his superb 2022 biopic Elvis
In the Warner Brothers archives stored in salt mines in Kansas, he and his team found 65 boxes of unseen concert footage from the early 1970s, the so-called Vegas years of Elvis.
Now they’ve been restored, synchronized with the missing audio, and the result is a thrilling reminder of what an extraordinary artist Elvis was of late.
The monumental kitsch of his Vegas shows sometimes fuels a tendency to dismiss him as a rhinestone shadow of his former self, but he really was as good as ever. Not only his irresistible charisma, but also his pure musicality will shake not only his die-hard fans.
EPiC is more than a concert film. Luhrmann also uncovered an unheard audiotape of Elvis talking about his career, so he adds that to the mix and we follow him both onstage and off; Cary Grant and Sammy Davis Jr. was among those who observed a moment of silence after the show. “You started picking up speed and never stopped,” marvels Davis, who is no slouch in the performing arts department.
But mainly it’s about the music. Suspicious Minds’ spectacular performance ends with a pulsating drum solo that Elvis completely dominates, like a devout fundamentalist in the glory of God. I think Ann Lee would approve.
Both films are in theaters now. There was a longer review of EPiC last Saturday.
Also showing…
Molly Russell was the 14-year-old British girl who took her own life in 2017, driven to despair by an abundance of toxic online material about self-hatred.
Molly vs. the Machines (15, 91 minutes, four stars) A powerful and timely documentary about the corrosive and sometimes deadly impact of social media platforms founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who refuse to be accountable and bristle at efforts to regulate them, in some cases disparaging them as censorship. Step forward, Mark Zuckerberg.
The understated but determined hero of Marc Silver’s film is Molly’s father, Ian, who continues to campaign against those who think it’s okay to feed this poison to children. He often feels like he is fighting a losing battle. But the more people watch this hugely important documentary, the better the chances of winning it. B.V.
On Thursday, March 5 at 21.00 on Channel 4 and in cinemas on Sunday.
