Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Cristiana Dell’Anna, John Lithgow, David Morse, Giancarlo Giannini, Romana Maggiora Vergano
Intro:
… paints its characters with broad brush strokes, yet its visuals are detailed and sumptuous.
This film about Francesca Cabrini – an Italian nun who sailed to America in 1889 to help the New York’s impoverished Italian immigrant orphans – paints its characters with broad brush strokes, yet its visuals are detailed and sumptuous.
The framing and the way the light is captured make this look like a renaissance master has the job of cinematographer (Gorka Gómez Andreu, who shot Sound of Freedom). The sense of another time and place is extraordinary. It’s such a treat for the eyes that this film doesn’t feel anywhere near as long as its actual runtime.
Portrayed by Cristiana Dell’Anna, Cabrini was a defiant woman with an incredible story of fighting a male-dominated system. Early in the film, she hustles her way into Pope Leo VIII’s office, telling him of her dream to help the poor of Asia. Her mission had already been rejected, but the Pope (Giancarlo Giannini) gives her permission to start, as long as she begins in America.
Leading a small group of nuns, she arrives in New York to find fellow Italians living in squalor and facing naked racism. She gets help from a reluctant Vittoria (Romana Maggiora Vergano), a sex worker who has a nasty pimp for a boss. Vittoria takes a risk on behalf of the nuns and finds them a place to spend the night. Later, she will work at the orphanage that Cabrini establishes, and their friendship is one of the few times that the film focuses on interrelationships. Cabrini’s nuns, meanwhile, barely have speaking parts and are little more than extras. Characters here are either good people or bad – John Lithgow’s mayor is mean, Patch Darragh’s Dr Murphy is compassionate, only David Morse’s Archbishop has any complexity – he’s a good guy but would prefer it if these pesky nuns would go away.
There are well staged dramatic scenes that keep things interesting, and the pacing is good, even if the writing is ordinary. The script and direction come from the same team that delivered Sound of Freedom [as is the backing studio, Angel Studios] – director/co-writer Alejandro Monteverde and co-writer Rod Barr. Sound of Freedom, which dealt with child trafficking, courted controversy with its apparent flirtations with far right/QAnon conspiracies. Cabrini, however, is unlikely to be accused of anything except being too long. It has a strong anti-racist message, which is fitting: Cabrini – the first American citizen to be canonised – is the patron saint of immigrants. And while this true tale is about a woman of faith, it’s not really a faith-based film and can be enjoyed by a secular audience.
Cabrini is flawed, yet it’s highly watchable, and this nun and her orphans will pull a heartstring or two.
