THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE is a grand retelling of an almost forgotten piece of history. Equal parts Arthur Miller and Busby Berkeley, it features music you could imagine Kate Bush singing and a script that feels like a Bronte sister wrote it.

(Take your pick on which Bronte)

Directed by Mona Fastvold, the film tells the story of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried), founder of the Shaker movement – a society of Christian believers looking to build a more equitable and utopian society. The film follows the religion’s beginnings in 1700’s Manchester, and its voyage to America just before The Revolutionary War.

Sermons become elaborate pageants, hymns become musical numbers, ecstatic worship becomes elaborate choreography.

Fastvold’s direction in this film is a masterclass in cinema. The chiaroscuro images of testimonies she captures should be hanging in The Louvre – and each sequence reminds the viewer of the way Gene Kelly used to choreograph camera movements to capture the intricate choreography being staged.

All of this is helped in no small part by Seyfried, who speaks, sings, and screams with her whole self – doing her character proud by seemingly channeling a higher power and daring the audience to look away. She starts with a single sentence, one gentle lyric, one beat of her chest…and before you know it, the gathered faithful around her are filling the screen with a cacophony spirals, bounces, and chants.

She’s one half faith healer, one half rock star.

The voices are intense, the footsteps are heavy, the rooms are dark, the clothing is threadbare. THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE is a grand movie in every way – from the smallest prison cell to the vastest New England river valley. It paints a sad story of faith and flesh with bold strokes and makes you wonder why this volume of history is seldom pulled from the shelf.

A tragic swirl of sex and faith, THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE is a master class in filmmaking in every regard.