Review: Amanda Seyfried throws herself, body and soul, into 'The Testament of Ann Lee'

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The act of faith, of believing, is by definition something that can’t be seen.Religious devotion is difficult to capture on film.

“The Testament of Ann Lee,” a portrait of the woman who led the movement known as the Shakers from England to America in the 1700s, transforms the spiritual into something physical through movement and song, creating a most unusual musical and a genuinely remarkable movie.Directed by Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote the script with her partner, Brady Corbet, the film comes quickly after their collaboration on “The Brutalist,” which was directed by Corbet.Across projects that also include Fastvold’s “The World to Come” and Corbet’s “The Childhood of a Leader” and “Vox Lux,” they continue to craft finely detailed historical fictions that have both a sweep and a specificity, made on budgets that are startlingly modest for what they manage to get on-screen.

Their ongoing collaboration makes for an eclectic and engaging body of work.But “Ann Lee” is not “The Brutalist Part II” and Fastvold definitely has her own interests as a filmmaker — in particular how the world has historically been skeptical of women, disregarding their agency and value by trying to place them in limiting, prescribed roles.“Ann Lee” as a movie and Ann Lee as a character burst open those preconceptions.

Movies After winning an Oscar for “The Brutalist,” the English composer takes on a musical about the founder of the Shakers — a close collaboration with Amanda Seyfried.Played with a bold fervor by Amanda Seyfried, Ann Lee suffers the loss of four children in their infancy, which causes her to turn away from her uncaring husband (Christopher Abbott).As part of her growing awakening, she comes to believe that celibacy brings one closer to God.

As her own beliefs begin to take idiosyncratic shape, Lee begins to engage a few followers.Her faithf...