Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 142 minutes
Release Date: March 8th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Angel Studios
Director(s): Alejandro Monteverde
Writer(s): Rod Barr / Rod Barr & Alejandro Monteverde (story)

We can serve our weakness or we can serve our purpose. Not both.

It’s wild to me that anyone could think “from Angel Studios, the deep pockets that put Sound of Freedom into theaters and then took conservative money to ‘give’ people free tickets en route to becoming #1 at the box office despite empty theaters” is a selling point, yet that’s exactly what was used on me both at the theaters during trailers and via publicists emailing (and calling) me to watch Alejandro Monteverde’s latest Cabrini. All those things are actually why I made the conscious choice to skip the film regardless of the fact it was filmed in Buffalo. I simply couldn’t care.

And yet, there it was in my inbox. The other screener I had planned to watch this week never came, so why not fire up this tale of America’s first saint? Because it is an intriguing story on the surface. Mother Cabrini (a very good Cristiana Dell’Anna) hopes to begin her quest to open orphanages across the world, starting in China, only to have the Vatican shut her down in large part because she’s a woman. The fact she’s been given five years to live doesn’t help her case, but the tenacity such a sentence imbues within her to make a difference anyway does sway the Pope to finally approve her request—if she starts in New York City instead.

That’s where the drama lies as she and her nuns land ashore to discover Five Points a cesspool of filth that provides rats a better home than the Italian immigrant children America sees as unworthy of life. Cabrini’s tenacity reigns supreme again as she befriends people with sway (those not so far removed from their own immigrant status like Patch Darragh’s Dr. Murphy) to stand at her side against the real white power players who, as too many still do today, consider themselves “true” Americans (like John Lithgow’s Mayor Gould). And then there’s Archbishop Corrigan (David Morse) stuck in the middle trying not to rock the boat and thus sabotage his stature in both the eyes of God and government.

The story is an inspirational one with Cabrini definitely proving worthy of a bio-pic. I question a lot of Rod Barr’s script’s motivations considering this is a Christian film bolstered by conservative backers (making the “message” more about assimilation than tolerance—both easy sells anyway considering everyone shares a common religion), but there’s enough drama and ambition to warrant the shoehorned feminist angle that ends the whole with “a man couldn’t do the things I’ve done” moment. That line between eye-rolling farce and historical relevance is always thin with these types of productions, but I will say I was impressed by how good Cabrini looked. It goes a long way towards bridging that gap of legitimacy—especially since most films shot in Buffalo lack the same polish.

So, in the end, I’m glad I watched the film. It’s better than I anticipated even if it also proves to be exactly what I thought it would be from its trailer and pedigree. Dell’Anna delivers a wonderful lead role with Romana Maggiora Vergano adding a nice supporting turn. The stunt casting doesn’t play as distracting as it seemed from the marketing (Lithgow isn’t really in it much at all) and I thought Morse, Jeremy Bobb, Giancarlo Giannini, and others rounded things off nicely as allies and villains alike. Would I have liked more personality and less “Christians can be woke too” themes trying to court audiences across the aisle? Yes. But I won’t deny the opposite probably would have been worse.

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Cristiana Dell’Anna in CABRINI; courtesy of Angel Studios.