The last few decades have certainly given credence to the Karl Marx philosophy of religion being the opiate of the masses. Gigantic bureaucracies can lead to unimaginable cruelty for sure. However, inside those bureaucracies are also people with pure passion and a drive to live in service of others, determined to make the world better for the downtrodden. Francesca Cabrini is one of those amazing people, getting a long overdue big screen representation of her even bigger, incredible life.
In the late 1800s, Maria Francesca “Mother” Cabrini (Cristiana Dell’Anna) and her convent of a few fellow pious nuns were hard at work, building orphanages in Lombardy, Italy. But after some near misses knocking on death’s door, Cabrini was determined to do as much as she could with the time she has. After failing to convince Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini) to help with poverty in China and eastern countries, the Pope instead sends her to Five Points in New York City, which, if you’ve seen Gangs of New York, was a slummy hellscape where many poor Italian immigrants daily suffer and eventually die lonely forgotten deaths. But all Mother Cabrini can see is lost children in search of hope, which she spends every moment trying to build there, despite the pushback from Archbishop Corrigan (David Morse) and eventually, Mayor Gould (John Lithgow).
Director Alejandro Monteverde is clearly the shining star of the faith based movie directors, helming the uber successful Sound of Freedom last year. With Cabrini, he continues to hone his craft further. There are a bunch of wonderful hero shots to paint Mother Cabrini in rays of light. Though limited by his use of stages, Monteverde makes the most of them, using lights and darkness to his advantage to make Five Points the evil cesspool he needs it to be, as well as using his on location shots to look naturally majestic in their innocent simplicity. The costumes really transport you to late 1800s NYC, easily telling the audience who are the rich and who are the poor, one poofy dresses and top hat at a time. And even though Cabrini’s script threatens to torpedo the whole film, Monteverde does a pretty great job thematically tying the movie together, using “where you belong” as the simple, understandable motif around which the movie orbits.
But maybe what Monteverde is best at is letting the story’s power drive and enriching the audience around the edges. Frankly, I’m shocked there hasn’t been a movie about the first saint in the United States, seems like a big deal right? Francesca Cabrini did so many amazing things that her movie basically runs itself, with the excellent Cristiana Dell’Anna channeling the walking contradiction of a woman: physically frail, but mentally and emotionally an unstoppable force of nature. The story is best in the weeds of Cabrini’s rise to civic power, navigating each new roadblock with some workaround or brave insistence on doing the right thing over and over again. These constant achievements paint our heroine not only as godly but also sneakily clever, like say giving Martin Luther King Jr. some ideas on how to use the press to peacefully protest. And the end result should bring tears to the eyes of anyone with a heart: dozens of forgotten poor children find purpose and simple joys from Cabrini’s drive to make the world a better place. Yes Cabrini can be preachy, but when the end goals are so selfless and wholesome, it’s easy to forgive a little high horsing for an overlooked crusader from the past.
Angel Studios really tries to flex its muscles with Cabrini. If this movie makes a profit, we’re on the cusp of maybe a new golden era of biblical moviemaking, with Alejandro Monteverde our Cecil B. DeMille. Although, Jim Caviezel still has a ways to go before he can be the new Charlton Heston. On the other hand, Cristiana Dell’Anna is already more believable than Anne Baxter as an Egyptian Princess. And don’t even get me started on Edward G. “mwrah” Robinson doing Arabic by way of Brooklyn. Gosh those 50s Bible epics were something else!