Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: The Testament of Ann Lee, All You Need Is Kill, Molly vs the Machines and more

The Testament of Ann Lee 

(137 mins, 15) Directed by Mona Fastvold; starring Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Thomasin McKenzie 

She was an illiterate preacher, first in England and later the US, at a time when women’s voices were rarely permitted to lead worship. She was instrumental in founding the Shakers, an offshoot of the Quakers, known for a noisy, vigorously physical religious dances. She advocated celibacy, even between married couples. She claimed to be the second coming of Christ. The charismatic 18th-century religious fanatic Ann Lee is an unconventional subject for a biographical historical drama, even before you factor in the film’s audacious decision to tell her story through the medium of the musical.

Directed by Mona Fastvold (co-writer of The Brutalist with her partner, Brady Corbet, who also collaborated on this screenplay), the feature is a fascinating, if uneven, curio. The choreographed sequences harness the feverish flailing abandon of the devotees to thrilling effect, while the score by Daniel Blumberg reimagines traditional hymns as ecstatic chants. There are moments of astonishing beauty – an opening sequence, for example, in which a group of women dance through the woods – but the movie seems oddly unquestioning about Ann as a character, played by Amanda Seyfried, swallowing her claims of visions and voices as eagerly as her credulous followers.

And the wild, uncontained energy of the first section – frequently shot from a God’s-eye perspective, the better to capture the lashing limbs and whipping hair – is not entirely sustained in an overlong, rather repetitive final segment. Still, for its genuine originality and inventive approach, and for the arresting, richly textured cinematography, The Testament of Ann Lee is an act of devotion.

All You Need Is Kill

(86 mins, 15) Directed by Kenichiro Akimoto; voiced by Ai Mikami, Natsuki Hanae

It might not have the international profile of Studio Ghibli, Toei Animation or Ufotable, but for my book, the indie Japanese anime company Studio 4°C (makers of Tekkonkinkreet and ChaO) is producing some of the most visually distinctive and intriguing animation of the moment. Its latest release is inspired by a manga of the same title, which was itself adapted from a novel; the source material has already been given the big screen treatment in Doug Liman’s Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

The essential plot is the same – a young woman named Rita (Ai Mikami) is on the frontline when deadly alien organisms launch an attack. She finds herself caught in a time loop that resets every time she dies, honing her skills as a warrior with each fresh start and eventually teaming up with Keiji (Natsuki Hanae), who is trapped in the same endless loop. The story might be familiar but the dazzling animation makes it well worth a return visit.

Scream 7 

(113 mins, 18) Directed by Kevin Williamson; starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Isabel May 

The Scream series has always been archly meta and self-referential. Now, like the ouroboros of slasher movie franchises, it has almost entirely devoured itself. The seventh movie in the series, which was written and directed by the original creator, Kevin Williamson, largely consists of characters and story elements that have already been chewed up and passed through the digestive system of The Scream machine several times.

Neve Campbell returns as Sidney Prescott, the franchise’s original and irreplaceable final girl, now a mother of a teenage daughter, Tatum (Isabel May). A host of other fan favourites and familiar faces from the early days make appearances, some of whom may or may not have been resurrected. But the true test of a Scream movie is the quality of the villain behind the Ghostface mask. By that metric, this instalment is thin gruel indeed.

Molly vs the Machines

(83 mins, 15) Directed by Marc Silver

There’s a heartbreaking sense of what might have been in this powerful documentary, which explores the case of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in her bedroom after being exposed to harmful content on social media. At the same time, Marc Silver’s documentary, co-written with the Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff, interrogates the forces of surveillance capitalism and identifies the cynical decision-making that resulted in an algorithmic production line of negative material.

Molly’s father, Ian Russell, now a prominent campaigner for online safety for children, speaks about life after his daughter’s death. Interviews with Molly’s schoolfriends, now young women at the start of their adult lives, paint a picture of a warm, bright and caring girl. And recreations of the inquest into her death reveal corporate callousness so enraging, you want to burn the whole of Silicon Valley to the ground.

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert

(96 mins, 12A) Directed by Baz Luhrmann; featuring Elvis Presley

During the research for his 2022 biopic Elvis, the director Baz Luhrmann discovered a holy grail of rock’n’roll history. Deep in the Warner Bros archive vaults, in an underground salt mine in Kansas, his researchers uncovered 59 hours of previously unseen footage recorded for the concert films Elvis: That’s the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour. This meticulously restored material, together with unseen snippets of Super 8 from the Graceland archives and recordings of Elvis talking about his life and career, form the basis of an affectionate celebration of the King at the showboating, audience-snogging, jumpsuit-wearing peak of his Las Vegas power. While it is unlikely to tell you much you don’t already know, this is a must-see for Presley fans and a boisterously enjoyable watch even for Elvis agnostics.

Photographs by Disney/©Hiroshi Sakurazaka/Shueisha/ Molly vs the Machines/Universal