The Testament of Ann Lee (2026)
In a movie era saturated with remakes, reboots, sequels, and superhero spin-offs, films like The Testament of Ann Lee are as strange and singular as they come.
The film is essentially a birth-to-death epic told in modest scale, exploring the life of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), founder of the Shaker movement in the 1700s. Lee, born in Manchester, develops an aversion to sex from an early age, intensified by a complicated sexual relationship with her eventual husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott) and the deaths of all four of her children in infancy. Seeking solace, she falls in with a religious sect of "shaking Quakers," who express their spirituality through dance and bodily self-expression. Lee later becomes the religion's figurehead, asserting a new spiritual principle of celibacy and helping to bring the religion to America with her brother William (Lewis Pullman), though at great personal cost to them both.
If the film's subject matter sounds unbearably dry, its approach is anything but. Part historical drama, part gothic folktale, and part musical (yes, you heard that right), Ann Lee is ambitiously strange. Your tolerance for its weird, witchy wavelength will be tested within its opening frames, which depicts Shakers slowly descending upon a forest while dancing, set against an eerie soundtrack and the fairytale-like narration of actress Thomasin McKenzie. It's an audacious opening for an audacious movie.
Like almost all modern movies, Ann Lee is about 20 minutes too long. Also, its unsparing, occasionally brutal, depictions of child death and violent religious persecution might prove too much for some viewers. However, the film's music and dancing are often darkly beguiling, not to mention its stunning cinematography, which captures 18th century Manchester in all of its atmospheric glory.
The real reason to see Ann Lee, however, is Seyfried. She simultaneously brings a wide-eyed intensity and child-like vulnerability to the role that she's come to be known for since her revelatory turn as CEO scammer Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu's miniseries The Dropout.
Seyfried sings, sweats, cries, dances, and
sermonizes. Much like Lee's followers, wherever Seyfried is headed, we're
compelled to follow.
