CABRINI, US, 2024. Starring Christiana Dell’Anna, David Morse, John Lithgow, Giancarlo Giannini, Jeremy Bobb, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Patch Darragh. Directed by Alejandro Monteverde. 145 minutes. Rated M (Mature themes and violence)
Italian-born Frances Xavier Cabrini established a religious congregation, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, whose motto is taken from St Paul: ‘I can do all things in him who strengthens me’. Forty minutes into this portrait of Mother Cabrini, we hear her say these words. And, by this stage of the film, we know that this is true. But, there are almost two more hours or – an extraordinary extension of ‘all things’.
We follow her and six of her Missionary Sisters to New York in 1889, where she defied impossible odds to build an empire that benefitted only the forgotten and outcast.
The tone is set in the prologue. A young boy, Paolo is dragging a wheelbarrow containing his dying mother through the streets of New York. He is calling out for help in Italian. Everybody ignores him until a policeman accosts him, giving an address where the sick woman could be taken, but she dies. Paolo will later appear in this story.
Then the transition to Italy, a young woman in a religious habit. The camera dwells on her face, inviting us to respond. Throughout the film, the camera will focus on Mother Cabrini’s face, mostly intense, often sad, rarely smiling, but absolutely determined in her goals, and in her confidence in God’s Providence. And she often states that if you begin the mission, the means will come.
Mother Cabrini had a dream of establishing orphanages in China but had been refused permission by Vatican officials. She eventually meets with Pope Leo XIII (Giannini) who suggests a mission in New York.
Italian actress Dell’Anna depicts Mother Cabrini with an intense interiority; no histrionics. This is a determined woman of faith. The film uses the language of faith (though no scenes of prayer and community – and one might have expected some emphasis on her Sacred Heart devotion, though some glimpses of statues and paintings).
Filmgoers who remember Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York will appreciate the reconstruction of Five Points, the squalid 19th-century neighbourhood in Lower Manhattan, a densely populated, disease-ridden, crime-infested slum. Five Points was home to many non-English-speaking Italian migrants who were despised by many of the locals and subjected to racist attacks.
Mother Cabrini goes instantly into action, rescuing children, encountering a young prostitute and clashes with her vicious pimp, continually finding accommodation, looking for buildings, looking for support. There are many scenes of her confrontations with the Archbishop of New York, Archbishop Corrigan (Morse). Corrigan of Irish background is reluctant to help Mother Cabrini, urging her to return to Italy, but she continually confronts him. Then there are the local authorities. The mayor (Lithgow) is a supremely arrogant politicians and the police, who are under his control, despise the Italians. There are scenes of them riding roughshod over a crowd gathered at an Italian festival in a park.
Mother Cabrini is of strong Italian stock with strong Italian attitudes (and grew up in strong anti-clerical times), ready to confront anyone be they archbishop or mayor . . . Despite opposition and setbacks, her forte was in persuading people to support her. And her mission was continued outreach.
In the 19th century, while women did not have a place in church governance, there were many strong women who ran hospitals, schools, exercising this kind of church leadership. When the Mayor suggests she should have been a man, Mother Cabrini replies that men cannot do what women can do.
After a deadly subway explosion, the need for hospitals is clear and it is the beginning of Cabrini hospitals in many parts of the world. Despite politically-sanctioned arson, she keeps going.
A cinema biography in the long traditional style of such stories, moving, challenging audience compassion.
Rialto
Released 7 March