Cabrini (2024)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, March 08

PG-13 Running Time: 140 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

Another surprise in the first months of the 2024 movie year, Cabrini is a movie that speaks to a wider audience than one may be anticipating.
With a limited budget, Cabrini has gorgeous cinematography and production design and a really strong lead performance from Cristiana Dell’Anna.
If we are being honest, this is a rather bold film within its categorical framing - pro-feminism and pro-immigrant when the target audience largely dismiss or turn away from those topics.

NO

From the director of Sound of Freedom and the studio that distributes webseries “The Chosen” in theaters, comes a movie that never explicitly references Jesus and takes a pro-feminist, pro-immigrant stance. If any of that bothers you, this is perhaps not the movie for you.
Some will find this pacing slow and plodding. In addition, viewers may be surprised that a significant number of scenes are subtitled.
While I like the quiet resolve on display here, others may wish this thing was more bully pulpit and evangelical than it turns out to be.

OUR REVIEW

With gorgeous cinematography by Gorka Gómez Andreu, bathing characters in a golden light, while shadowing them through delicate layers of blacks and grays, Cabrini introduces audiences to the story of Catholic missionary and nun Francis Xavier Cabrini. The first United States citizen to be canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1946, nearly three decades after her death, this new biopic of her life is largely told as an immigrant’s tale of rousing inspiration and strength.

Departing her native Italy for 1880s New York City, Cabrini is accompanied by several nuns, offering support as Mother Cabrini is tasked to help the Italian immigrants improve their way of life. Together they form the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and through teaching, support, love, and faith, the superfluity fight against deeply ingrained biases and opposition to what amounts to non-whites building a successful life. Stifled at initially every turn, Mother Cabrini battles her frail and debilitating health to become a steadfast and furious advocate for the people she has been summoned to serve.

Directed by Alejandro Monteverde, whose 2023 breakout hit Sound of Freedom was, to put it mildly, a lightning rod of controversy upon its release, Cabrini is quieter and far more subdued. In certain moments, this resembles a more mainstream independent film one might expect from IFC Films or Magnolia Pictures. Instead this comes from Angel Studios, currently the top-grossing faith-based film studio in the business. And when many of their releases are uncompromising in their more conservative and religious sentiments, Cabrini is afar different film than they have released thus far.

Faith and religious sentiment rests at the centerpiece of Cabrini’s journey but does not lend itself to long sermons or monologues preaching strident beliefs or a particular ideology. Instead, we have a film that seems in some ways to be at odds with the strict conservative values shared by many who will choose to see the film. Flirting with a pro-feminist viewpoint, Monteverde’s film also carries a pro-immigrant message. And in a world where immigrants in America are played like pawns in our current political landscape, Cabrini firmly pushes back on those talking points.

In the lead role, Cristiana Dell’Anna impressively carries much of the film. Her resolve and strength is inspiring from a character standpoint. Scenes where she finds success verbally sparring with the aloof and outmatched Archbishop Corrigan (David Morse), who tries to leverage his position with the church as a means with which to stifle Mother Cabrini’s ambitions, are a jolt to the film’s overall subdued presentation. Additionally, Cabrini’s connection to Vittoria (Romana Maggiora Vergano), a prostitute caught in a hopeless spiral of living a life she cannot find her way out of, gives the film a heart and compassion it needs to resonate with audiences.

Otherwise though, Cabrini struggles from an overlong running time of 140 minutes and a director who often moves at a glacial pace. Monteverde is in no real hurry, meaning his screenplay, co-written with Sound of Freedom screenwriter Rod Barr, gives us variations of similar scenes. How many times does Cabrini request or ask for something she needs from many of the White men connected to the church or the city, only to have to defend her reasoning and logic? The film loses further steam when we consistently witness Cabrini argue and fight to get her way time and time again.

In the moments which languish,, I simply found myself studying Dell’Anna’s performance, restrained in a way which radiates the physical pain and suffering Cabrini experienced in her later years. In addition to Vergano’s supporting turn, John Lithgow shows up as an appropriately slimy mayor (a scripted embellishment not found in Cabrini’s true story) and Jeremy Bobb has a nice turn as Mr. Calloway, a journalist who witnesses Cabrini’s plight.

In a terrific scene, we hear Calloway, through voiceover, read an article he writes for the New York Times about the Five Points neighborhood Cabrini and her colleagues serve. “Even the rats have it better,” Calloway writes, a phrase that Cabrini herself espouses again and again to implore people to act, in true dismay over how impoverished and neglected her community has become.

Mother Cabrini’s legacy within the Catholic Church is without impeachability. The film which shares her name is far from perfect. Dialogue can be a bit on-the-nose and the film loses nothing if it were 20-25 minutes shorter. But it also has moments of lasting emotional impact.

Audiences may be surprised to see a fair amount of subtitles and no direct mention of someone whose shadow hangs over the entire film. What I discovered is an arms-wide-open cinematic experience, offering faith and religion as an entry point, but leaving viewers with a moving testament to diversity, inclusion and female empowerment.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Cristiana Dell’Anna, David Morse, Romana Maggiora Vergano, John Lithgow, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeremy Bobb, Federico Castelluccio, Patch Darragh, Virginia Bocelli, Rolando Villazón

Director: Alejandro Monteverde
Written by: Rod Barr (screenplay); Rod Barr, Alejandro Monteverde (story)
Release Date: March 8, 2024
Angel Studios

Another surprise in the first months of the 2024 movie year, Cabrini is a movie that speaks to a wider audience than one may be anticipating.

With a limited budget, Cabrini has gorgeous cinematography and production design and a really strong lead performance from Cristiana Dell’Anna.

If we are being honest, this is a rather bold film within its categorical framing - pro-feminism and pro-immigrant when the target audience largely dismiss or turn away from those topics.

From the director of Sound of Freedom and the studio that distributes webseries “The Chosen” in theaters, comes a movie that never explicitly references Jesus and takes a pro-feminist, pro-immigrant stance. If any of that bothers you, this is perhaps not the movie for you.

Some will find this pacing slow and plodding. In addition, viewers may be surprised that a significant number of scenes are subtitled.

While I like the quiet resolve on display here, others may wish this thing was more bully pulpit and evangelical than it turns out to be.