Last Night a DJ Saved Our Lives
The Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor of newsletters is shook by đ đ ANN LEE đ đ and five other truly worth-it reads.
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Glorious Spreadfamiglia,
Sometimes we love a thing too much to keep that love to ourselves. Such is the case with The Testament of Ann Leeâofficially the Spreadâs favorite awards-bait movie of the 2025-2026 season, which (and this is so us) has not been nominated for any Oscars at all. The universe may have conspired against this inventive, lyrical, and thought-provoking piece of filmmaking, but we are here to give it its due. Somebody tell director Mona Fastvold and star Amanda Seyfried: Weâre sure this vote of confidence from Spreadlandia is all the approval they need.
As youâll see, we do go on (and on) about this one. If you make it all the way to the endâmaybe pack a protein bar for the journey?âyou will be rewarded by this weekâs most excellent reads.
Hands to work, hearts to God,
Rachel & Maggie
Maggie: Rachel! Itâs been so hard to save my thoughts on Ann Lee for todayâs Spread. If I watch a movie and donât process it with you immediately, did I even watch it?
Rachel: Well, weâre doing the Lordâs work and saving our hot takes for our readers! This movie sticks its neck out so far. Itâs a really audacious movie to full-throatedly recommend. And yet, I want everyone in Spreadlandia to see it.
M: People talk about how this is a musical but really itâs a DANCE MOVIE.
R: Itâs 1000% a dance movie. Itâs basically the pre-, pre-, prequel to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Itâs like if that A24 movie from 2015, The Witch, had a baby with Flashdance.
M: Somehow after J.Lawâs Die My Love, Hamnet, and even If I Had Legs (which I thought was excellent), this is the movie that thrilled me this year. Probably because I really didnât expect to love it. I thought the whole thing might be...chafing. But itâs so inventive and gorgeous. Fastvold somehow makes it feel like this is the one and only way this story could be told.
R: Is this where I admit that Iâve been listening to the soundtrack on Spotify?
M: Wow, your level of commitment never fails to astound. I read that Fastvold based the dance moves on paintings from the period and actual writings from the Shakers about their âecstatic worship.â So while the very forceful choreography feels super modern (is it dated of me to say thereâs a lot of, um, popping and locking going on?) I guess itâs also somewhat historically accurate?
R: Letâs have a sleepover and make up our own dance to âAll Is Summer.â Thatâs the thing about this movie as a whole: itâs a faithful (in more ways than one) period drama that feels completely modern.
M: Iâve been thinking so much about âecstatic worship,â and how the Shakers experienced transcendence through moving their bodies. Donât laugh but it made me think of Taryn Toomeyâs âThe Classââthat culty exercise class. And about how the dance floor is the place Iâve come closest to⊠I donât want to say God⊠but certainly to some higher collective energy. Ecstatic is the word. Maybe the Shakers werenât religious zealots after all: They just liked to boogie?
R: Thatâs whatâs so fascinating to me about Ann Lee herself: She liked to boogie, she didnât want to fornicate â boom, thatâs the religion! The movie takes this woman who literally believes she is the second coming of Christ SO SERIOUSLY. And also neutrally enough that we can see the seams of her psychological trauma that steered her down this path.
M: This is an unexpected entry in the list of recent films about the brutality of motherhood. Readers: Ann Lee lost four children, some in childbirth and some as infants. After which she had a religious epiphany (boy, I had to fight not to put that word in quotes!) and decided that all sex, even in marriage, was a sin that kept humans at a remove from God. Which is a pretty good way to make sure youâre never going to have to suffer the loss of another child. Rachel, on the cinematic spectrum of â(white) motherhood is hell,â from most gruesome to least, how would you order Hamnet, If I Had Legs, Die My Love, and Ann Lee?
R: Oh great question! Well the rub for Ann Lee is that motherhood is hell, and Motherhood is sublime â or divine. Her followers refer to her as Mother Ann. Thereâs a song about 20 minutes in thatâs extremely graphic in its portrayal of these births and losses. I closed my eyes through the whole thing: Thanks to Spreader Jesse B. for tipping me off.
M: I failed to get the memo from Jesse B.! I had to race home and do some serious googling, I couldnât believe that the Shakers really never had sex. Never? The obsolescence of the community is built in. That seems like a serious design flaw (har, har) for a sect that was so into design. But itâs true: No babymaking. They only recruited through adoption and conversion. (Trumpers would hate that!) And now there are three living Shakers. Literally, three. Living in a town in Maine.
R: Interesting that they never address that fact in the movie â that theyâre not making more members. I guess it would have been too obviously expository? Do you think they should have confronted it or better left as, duh, subtext?
M: I think it works. Fastvold had to know her viewers would be googling before they even got out of the theater. I had to resist the urge to research in the middle of the movie! Can I throw another hot take your way? Sexual frustration can really lead to some good lookinâ furniture.
R: Visual ASMR: Them building the commune! The making of the furniture! Wow.
M: The shared tasks! The chairs on the walls! The adult-size cradles for the sick and aged! If anything, this was Container Store porn. âA place for everything and everything in its place.â
R: Thatâs our new catchphrase at home with our children; not sure why theyâre not joining us in song. OK, Maggie: This was the most original movie of the year, and yet it got a total of ZERO Oscar nominations. What do you make of this?
M: I am mystified. It didnât seem to have much of a publicity machine behind it, relative to other Oscar bait. Like when I came home and wanted to read EVERYTHING about it, there wasnât that much. (I did like this piece in Smithsonian Magazine about Shaker design. đ€)
R: Remember that Fastvoldâs husband and writing partner, Brady Corbet, was absolutely insufferable on stage when he won awards for The Brutalist last season. There are theories about why The Brutalist cleaned up and Ann Lee got blankedâone of which is that the world hates women.
M: Natalie Portman sounded off on how this movie and others by women directors failed to get their due this year. Appreciate you, Natalie. Compare this to more âauteurishâ fare (by men) from the recent past, whether itâs Anora or Bradley Cooperâs Maestro. This, to me, blows them out of the water.
R: I have to hopeâbecause I donât want to have to shun the Oscars like Iâm a Shaker and theyâre the devilâs dance of doinâ itâ that the problem is just that not enough people saw it. Apparently Searchlight didnât pick it up for distribution until October. Iâve read that their big Oscar bet was Is This Thing On? A fine movie thatâs just not Oscars-y at all. When they realized that, they scrambled and grabbed Ann Lee. Too late.
M: I bet Natalie wishes she got to play Ann. But thank goodness it was go-for-broke Amanda Seyfried. Now officially the Spreadâs favorite actress.
R: I literally lolâd when Christopher Abbott strode onscreen to play Abraham, Annâs toxic husband. That guy just cannot quit playing bad boyfriend typesâitâs definitely âin conversationâ with his body of work, to put it lightly.
M: I totally forgot he was Charlie from Girls.
R: Hell, he played the same character two years ago in Poor Things. In Ann Lee, he says something to the effect of âYou are wife nowâ to a prostitute heâs been getting it on with because Ann is both above and too traumatized by sex. I was like, wow, just rolls off the tongue!
M: Wives: weâre pretty interchangeable. Rachel, do you think weâre overselling this movie for our gentle readers? I mean, as delighted as I was by it, I donât think itâs everyoneâs cup of tea.
R: Overselling it? Nah. Our readers are hearty and creative and brilliant. (Youâre welcome to join me in lavishing praise on them to bait them into loving it as much as we do â that strategy would clearly work on us!)
M: Oh yes, and donât forget beautiful.
R: GORGEOUS!
M: One question before we goâand I donât think itâs a big spoiler. In one scene Ann spritzes her newborn in the face with breastmilk that I swear is coming from Seyfriedâs actual breast. For a second, I thought: Wait, are we saying Ann Leeâs babies died because she didnât know how to breastfeed them!? Did you have that thought? Please help.
R: Hmmm. If the movie was saying that, would that be pro breastfeeding lobby or against? Iâd love to ask Fastvold about that. I think that was probably shorthand for this shit is hardâcan you imagine doing it without modern medicine and resources?
M: I think Seyfriedâs face in the photo below sums up my thoughts on that.
Weâve just applied for the vanity plate KEEPWWRDâŠ.
âŠin the states of New York, California, and North Carolina (because theyâre the only states that allowed eight characters and we couldnât figure out how to pull it off with only seven, OK?). And once our registration goes through, everyone on the highway from sea to shining see will know what weâre talking about: Keeping W magazine weird (in a fashion-y way, of course), especially their Great Performances issue! Duh! We digress: This seasonâs pre-Oscar portfolio, photographed by Tyrone Lebon and styled by EIC+ Sarah Moonves, is a classic of the form, with wild and woolly images of, say, Renate Reinsve bleeding profusely from the head and someone who purports to be A$AP Rocky wearing a full-body mascot costume of some kind. Also: Tessa Thompson serving; Jeremy Stern going method in every actorâs dream role (Little Bunny Foo Foo); Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd in drag; Kate Hudson in a sea of imposters; Chase Infiniti staying dry; and Emma Stoneâwho weâll begrudgingly admit was excellent in Bugonia; weâre sick of her!âdragging (?) a (??) body (???); among others. And though she was blanked by the Academy, our beloved Amanda Seyfried wins big here in the role of actor acting.
1. âHer ability to tolerate pain is her greatest asset,â said no one about your Spreaditors ever.
Cramps, dehydration, 30-mile-an-hour wind gusts, minus-21 wind chills. Legs numb. Lungs exploding. Contacts frozen to your eyeballs. Vision turning⊠pink? In a totally fascinating even-if-youâre-not-a-sports-person New York Times Magazine profile of Jessie Digginsâthe greatest American cross country skier of all time, male or femaleâReid Forgrave digs into the art, headspace, technique, and physiology of a sport that tests the upper limits of human endurance. The whole thing can basically be summed up in two words that we tend to associate with childbirth: pain cave. Still, it is moving to learn that the greatest pain Diggins has ever experienced has been her struggle with an eating disorderâand to marvel at what sheâs able to do with her body despite it. Does she race the way she does because sheâs driven by demons? âNo,â she says. âBecause Iâm free. Because Iâm happy and joyous in my everyday life, I can put myself through all that pain. But if youâre already in pain, you canât do that.â
Read it here before Diggins competes tomorrow at 7 a.m. ET in the womenâs 10 K freestyle. This time, sheâll be skiing with bruised ribs that make it hard to breathe. Fun!
2. He Got It From His Mama
Weâve heard people call him âZohran the Great,â and lesser life forms call him âZohran the Moron.â But ever since now-mayor Mamdani entered the national chat, weâve almost exclusively called him âMira Nairâs son.â Because: Can you believe he is Mira freakinâ Nairâs actual son? Thankfully, this week, in New York, the story weâve been waiting for: A profile of filmmaker and Mamdani âproducerâ (her termâcute, right?) Mira Nair by none other than Rebecca Traister. The whole portrait is lovely but weâll leave you with this quote from agent Bart Walker: âWhen I think about where Zohran comes from, I think about how Mira made historyâŠthere was no woman auteur from India having films distributed in the U.S. to a general audience. There was no Mira before Mira, no precedent for her; she blazed her path with talent, charm, and will in superabundance. Sound familiar?â
Read âThe Mayorâs Motherâ here.
3. Bring forth the frozen taquitos
In a week that saw the downfall of one longevity broâwith a few others perched in his wake, we can only hopeâan uprising of lady doctors pushing back at the credibility and the intentions of these self-appointed swamis, and Mike Tyson fat-shaming âfudgyâ American bodies as he pledges allegiance to RFK Jr, it turns out the most feminist thing we read was an op-ed defending (gasp!) Big Food. âWe Shouldnât Want to Eat Like Our Great-Great Grandparents,â write Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg, pointing out that back when we only had âreal foodâ to eat, âmalnutrition was rampant,â anemia was all the rage, and folks were walking around with goiters caused by iodine deficiency. As we see it, a defense of âStarbucks egg white bites, Trader Joeâs palak paneer or frozen microwavable vegetablesâ is a defense of the people most likely to take on the burden (and the paranoia, guilt, and expense) of the perfectionistic eating at which the cults of MAGA and Gwyneth intersect: Women, specifically mothers. These processed foods may not be perfect, but theyâre helping us get the job done, people.
Read it here.
4. She Took It Into Her Own Hands
Is the increasing availability and cultural acceptance of medically-assisted death for the terminally illââa suicide approach that is advertised as a dignified way to alleviate painââmaking it easier for people suffering from mental illness to find a way out? In the Atlantic, Elizabeth Bruenig tells the story of Eileen Mihich, a 31-year-old (who was in deep distress but not medically ill) who checked into a 4-star hotel in Portland, Oregon, last March and two days later was found dead next to prescription pill bottles and a pamphlet: âStep-by-Step Instructions for Taking Aid in Dying Medications.â Today, twelve states and Washington, D.C., allow doctors to prescribe lethal dosages of medication. The drugs are hard to get: many pharmacies refuse to sell them. But if Mihich found a way around the regulations, others could too, raising questions about what kinds of pain âqualifyâ for assisted suicideâand who should get to decide their own fate.
Read âIt Was Too Easy For Her To Kill Herselfâ here.
5. ⏠The best part of wakinâ up is Folgers in your cup perusing the table of contents of the new New Yorker. âŹ
For those of us who find ourselves humming that little jingle on Monday mornings, we got quite an eye-opener of a headline this week: âThe Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion.â Was this a horror story? A head fake of some kind? Was the âReporter at Largeâ slug a typo, when they really meant âfictionâ? Only a couple hours into the workday, we began receiving texts: âHave you read the babies story?!?!?!â âIâm afraid to read it!â âDo the babies get hurt?â And so forth and so on. In the name of service journalism, we read it and lived to tell. The gist: Staff writer Ava Kaufmanâs at once sweeping and exacting story about a pair of Chinese parents, Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, who moved to Southern California and set up their own surrogacy agency with the sole purpose of producing babies to make a âlarge familyââat least 26 so far. The 13,000-word rollercoaster is extremely complicated because it involves the coupleâs layered biography, motives, and brushes with the law; a host of surrogates; and several different states, all with different laws. Lots of threads! On top of that, Kaufman weaves in the legal and social context around surrogacy and surrogacy tourism, and sensitively acknowledges that while itâs the surrogacies gone wrong that make the news, thousands of lovely and trusting surrogacy arrangements succeed every year. The story is a feat. Also there is child abuse involved. And itâs a lot. If youâre feeling fragile, consider this your permission to skip!
Read it here.
And one to grow on: Thatâs Boss
We thought The Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer was exciting. Ha! We now know it was but an amuse-bouche for this weekâs New York Times joint interview by Jessica Testa with newly coronated American Vogue workhorse editor Chloe Malle and Anna Wintour, which, well, hot damn. Especially in this Diet Prada clipâwhich has sparked a battery of topnotch comments as usualâMalle is, compared to Boomer queen Wintour, basically a Millennial Norma Rae in Altuzarra.
Watch the whole interview here, or whet your appetite here.
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