After witnessing disease and poverty in the slums of New York, Italian immigrant Francesca Cabrini embarks on a daring journey to persuade the hostile mayor to provide housing and healthcare for hundreds of orphaned children. Last year, Director Alejandro Monteverde took the world by storm with his highly important film, Sound of Freedom. Shedding light on the ongoing crisis of child trafficking, Monteverde was able to reach a wider audience than most of the faith based films that Angel Studios normally distributes. In the case of his newest film Cabrini, Monteverde does a fabulous job telling the true story of a God fearing Italian Catholic missionary immigrant who fought tooth and nail to lead a better life for the orphans she cared for in 1889’s New York City. First off, Cristiana Dell'Anna gives a very raw and powerful performance as Mother Cabrini, as she deals with rampant sexism and anti-Italian bigotry from the inhabitants of New York City and specifically its upper class members. Dell’Anna brings so much grit, desperation, intensity and even blunt humor to her performance, making Cabrini a persistent underdog that you root for almost immediately. In spite of her declining health, Cabrini remains ever determined to save the lives of these poor and forgotten children, even if it means defying direct orders from the Pope or local authorities.
The movie shows how Italian immigrants were neglected by American society at the time and seen as subhumans who were often refused medical care. They were spat on, called ethnic slurs, and mostly ignored by the majority of the public. Mother Cabrini’s charity mission to give her orphans a safe place to live with clean water and food was met with much pushback not just from city officials, but even the church itself. Something that really stood out to me as an improvement from other Angel Studios films was the production design. This movie had a 50 million dollar budget and it was effectively utilized, immaculately bringing to life a late 19th century New York City. Whether it’s the rat infested dilapidated Five Points neighborhood in which Cabrini runs her orphanage, or the upscale buildings of Manhattan, the film does a fantastic job capturing the time period, complimented by superb cinematography from Gorka Gómez Andreu. John Lithgow is not in the movie much, but he is almost unrecognizable and steals every scene he is in as the snarling and bigoted NYC mayor. Another major highlight is Giancarlo Giannini who plays the Pope with just the right amount of stubbornness and authoritative assertion. The scenes with Cabrini verbally sparring with the mayor and the Pope are among the film’s most memorable sequences for me.
At a certain point halfway through the movie, Cabrini confronts a journalist at the New York Times, begging him to cover the story of the children living in poverty at Five Points. It was at this point in the movie that I realized just how deeply important its message about stepping outside our comfort zones and seeing how the poor and downtrodden are barely able to survive, no better off than sewer rats. Not just raising such awareness, but also doing something about it like Cabrini so bravely did. One of the young boy orphans that Cabrini cares for in particular gets an extremely depressing backstory that set the tone in the very first scene for just how desperate of a situation these Italian immigrants were in. I have two issues with the film. The first is that I wish we got to know more about Cabrini’s fellow nuns who accompanied her on the mission. Maybe it’s just me, but I do not recall hearing any of them utter a single word throughout the film.
The movie runs at 2 hours 25 minutes, and it’s the second act that sort of has a pacing lull. Perhaps 10 minutes could’ve been trimmed to tighten up the middle portion. Other than those minor gripes, I found Cabrini to be yet another win for Angel Studios and faith based cinema in general. The movie naturally showcases a strong God fearing woman immigrant fighting back against the patriarchal establishment of the late 19th century to make a better life for the orphans in which she so desperately cared for. Releasing this movie on International Women’s Day was a stroke of genius and I hope it gets solid box office returns. Overall, with an emotionally raw performance from Cristiana Dell'Anna in the title role, strong moral convictions, and uplifting messages about equality, Cabrini is a powerfully inspiring true story biopic drama from director Alejandro Monteverde.
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