Amanda Seyfried‘s sweeping musical drama “The Testament of Ann Lee” has found distribution after its Venice film festival premiere, where it was embraced with a rousing 15-minute standing ovation. Searchlight Pictures has acquired rights for North America and most international territories with plans to release the movie theatrically in 2025.
Directed by Mona Fastvold, “The Testament of Ann Lee” follows Seyfried as the title character, the founding leader of the Shakers, a radical religious moment that began in the late 1700s. Lee, one of the few female religious leaders of the 18th century, and her followers were known for worshipping through ecstatic song and movement. Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Stacy Martin, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott and Matthew Beard also star in the film.
“I was raised in a secular household, and yet Ann Lee’s prophecies — however implausible — moved me deeply. Not because I share her faith, but because I recognize in her a yearning for justice, transcendence and communal grace,” Fastvold said in a statement. “Her radical pursuit of a self- fashioned utopia speaks to the creative impulse at the heart of all artistic endeavor: the urgent need to shape the world anew.”
In a positive review for Variety, critic Guy Lodge praised the film’s “enthralling, borderline-absurd musical numbers” and the performance of the leading lady. “On paper, this might all sound quite bloodless and conceptual,” he wrote. “In practice, it has an earnest, full-hearted sweep, in large part thanks to a performance of redoubtable commitment and nerve-deep feeling by Amanda Seyfried — far from the musical terrain of either “Mamma Mia!” or “Les Misérables,” but fully in command of her gifts — in the title role.”
Fastvold co-wrote “The Testament of Ann Lee” with her partner Brady Corbet. The two most recently penned “The Brutalist,” directed by Corbet. That film, a three-hour and 30-minute epic, was acquired by A24 out of last year’s Venice and scored 10 Oscar nominations in addition to $50 million at the global box office. Fastvold’s other films include 2014’s “The Sleepwalker” and 2020’s “The World to Come.”
During the official press conference for “The Testament of Ann Lee,” Fastvold and Corbet got candid about the challenges of financing the independent film for just $10 million. The story focuses on a lesser-known chapter of American history, which means the movie wasn’t the most obvious sell to financiers.
“It was quite a feat,” Corbet said. “As you can imagine, the elevator pitch for ‘Shaker musical’ wasn’t the easiest to get off the ground.”
Despite a lean budget (major studio movies can cost at least five times as much), Fastvold managed to create massive set pieces and craft elaborate musical numbers to bring Ann Lee’s story to the big screen.
“I thought Ann Lee deserved something grandiose and wonderful,” said Fastvold. “How many stories have we seen about male icons on a grand scale, again and again and again? Can we not see one story about a woman like this?”
