#shakers

#shakers

A film about faith and other leaps, Mona Fastvold's remarkable The Testament of Ann Lee does not ask us to endorse or embrace the tenets of the 18th-century English sect called United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Coming, aka Shaking Quakers, aka the Shakers. Given that an important principle of co-founder Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried) was celibacy, many viewers would find that a bridge too far.

As Vincent Minnelli and Bob Fosse artfully demonstrated, music and movement - song and dance - are powerful vehicles for not only conveying deep emotions but enrolling audiences in leaps of joy and amazement and flights of mind. Daring to dare is the sentiment at the heart of a movie musical, and the quality that moviegoers respond to. The Testament of Ann Lee isn't exactly a musical in the sense that the songs don't tell the story.