Dir: Mona Fastvold, UK/US, 2025, 137 mins
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie
Review by Carol Allen
She and her followers, who hailed her as the female Christ, then went to America, where they recruited more followers and endured more persecution. They were known as the Shakers for the way they shook and shimmied when believing themselves to be in religious ecstasy. They are also known for making very simple but beautifully crafted furniture, which is still treasured today.
Rather like director Mona Fastvold’s previous film The Brutalist, I found the film good in parts but somewhat baffling. The authentic 17th century Manchester accents that the cast worked so hard to achieve also doesn’t add to ease of comprehension.
Ann is played with appropriate intensity by Amanda Seyfried. Three of her core beliefs were the equality of women – she claimed to be the daughter of God in the same way that Jesus Christ was his son – she was a pacifist like the Quakers and preached that sex was wrong and chastity the only way to God. Which rather limits how far the sect was going to be able to perpetuate itself. One can sort of understand Ann’s chastity belief though from early scenes, where sex with her husband (Christopher Abbott) is seen as brief, brutal, boring and leading every time to yet another pregnancy. The other male in her life is her brother Abraham (Lewis Pullman), who gives her his staunch support.
One of the visual pluses of the film is the choreography by Celia Rowlson-Hall of the Shakers in religious ecstasy, which is up there with any West End musical. I’m not sure that was her intention though. Rowlson-Hallof he has turned stomping, shaking and arm waving into choreographic art. Another is the authentic looking costumes – modest head coverings for the women despite their supposed equality – which are reminiscent of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, though that is actually set some half a century earlier.
Also interesting visually is the picture of newborn New York. Elegant streets and houses that look like a film set – which I guess they are being shot in a Budapest studio. New York with not a skyscraper yet born. While the tiny galleon that bears the doughty band over the ocean looks so scarily vulnerable that one wonders how they ever got there.
It is however a film that stays at a distance from the viewer. Very interesting but apart from those shaker dances, not that involving. And we don’t see enough of that lovely furniture.
About the Author
