Mona Fastvold directs Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman and Thomasin McKenzie in this period musical about the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, who is proclaimed as the female Christ by her followers.

It would hyperbole to say Amanda Seyfried is a revelation in this. She has been knocking it out of the park in serious roles like Chloe, Mank, The Dropout and Lovelace for a decade now. I guess Ann Lee is so removed from her introduction to us as a big eyed, bubble lipped teen in the likes of Mean Girls and Jennifer’s Body. And this is the first time where she completely sheds her cute, pure movie star sexuality and just embodies a Streep role. Would Meryl have these moves though? The Shaker dance orgies are wholly consuming. This is a big movie sharing that Kubrickian DNA of Fastvold and Corbet’s last collaboration The Brutalist. So there is a natural distance to the storytelling here. It isn’t a biopic that flows rather than pummels you. And a lot of time the spikes of historical incident are intimately depressing. Harrowing. Intrusive. So… not a rewatchable. But a challenging achievement none the less.

7

Perfect Double Bill: The New World (2005)