Director: Mona Fastvold

Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman

Mona Fastvold’s audacious and visionary historical drama charts the life of Ann Lee, a Mancunian woman, who in the 18th century became the figurehead of a radical religious movement. Born to a working-class family and illiterate, Ann (Seyfried) works in a cotton factory, then as a cook at an insane asylum. She joins a sect, founded by Jane Wardley and her preacher husband James in 1747, who believe the Second Coming would be female. Ann declares herself that woman, eschewing sex, to her husband’s protest, and amassing a band of followers. They are called the Shakers for their practice of gyrating and dancing to cleanse their sins. In 1774 they make their way to America, settling in Albany. Working for a script written with her husband Brady ‘The Brutalist’ Corbet, Fastvold treats the movement and its beliefs with absolute sincerity. The director may not be a believer herself, but she clearly believes that they believe and her cast are equally as committed. Seyfried’s Manchester accent is not perfect, but she gets the intonation right, while nailing Ann’s authority and sense of purpose. Cinematographer William Rexer effectively contrasts the brownish Manchester interiors with the lighter, airier Albany woods, while Celia Rowlson Hall’s choreographed seizure dances, accompanied by surprisingly catchy chants adapted by composer Daniel Blumberg from original shaker hymns, achieve a kind of ecstatic state. The picture loses momentum in the third act, but this is a work of rare ambition. The furniture, given a brief loving sequence, is lovely too.

David Willoughby

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