You’ve heard of the plucky orphan who takes on the big, bad world, right? Well, get ready for a twist on that classic tale – one where the spunky underdog is a tiny Italian nun with a thunderous will and an audacious dream bigger than the grandest New York skyscraper. Her name was Francesca Cabrini, and in the late 1800s, she was a force of nature crashing against the unforgiving shores of a young America.
This unassuming woman of faith didn’t just stand before the raging currents of poverty, bigotry, and patriarchal dominion – she plunged in, conquering towering waves with sheer tenacity. Like a modern-day David facing a city of Goliaths, Mother Cabrini was dismissed, belittled, and ordered to know her place. Her response? A defiant gleam in her eyes and a spirit that simply would not be extinguished.
In Cabrini, director Alejandro Monteverde brings the gutsy saint’s remarkably gritty origin story to vivid life. Get ready to be simultaneously awed and unsettled by witnessing the unstoppable determination that blazed beneath that humble nun’s habit. This is no pious hagiography – it’s a grand, sweeping saga of human perseverance etched in tough-as-nails realism.
Saint’s Defiant Crusade Against a Cruel City
The year is 1889, and the harsh reality of the New World clashes violently with Mother Francesca Cabrini’s enduring faith. Sent by Pope Leo XIII himself, this pint-sized nun arrives in the festering slums of Lower Manhattan, her lungs already faltering. What greets her? A twisted labyrinth of crime, disease, and unapologetic depravity that would break most mortals.
But Cabrini is no ordinary soul. Armed with an indomitable spirit and a divine mandate to uplift her fellow Italian immigrants, she charges headlong into the lion’s den of the notoriously lawless Five Points district. There, she faces imposing adversaries at every turn – the gruff and discriminatory Archbishop Corrigan, the vitriolic Mayor Gould (played with delicious villainy by John Lithgow), even the merciless streets themselves.
In this harsh, unforgiving landscape, young lives are snuffed out like candle flames. A haunting prologue follows a desperate boy dragging his dying mother’s body through the alleys, searching in vain for any shelter that will take in the foreign rabble. It’s a gut-punch of an opener, immediately immersing you in the visceral horrors Cabrini is determined to overcome.
Yet this diminutive “bride of Christ” refuses to surrender, rallying her small flock of equally resolute nuns. With fierce pragmatism, they recruit unlikely allies – a local priest, a street urchin, even a prostitute fleeing her monstrous pimp. Each partnership extracts a heavy toll, none more so than when the orphan’s revolver barks.
Despite constant setbacks, haughty rebukes from the elite, and her own failing health, Cabrini’s vigor remains unbowed. Like Jacob wrestling the angel, she seems to gain strength with each challenge. It’s a sweeping, decades-spanning David vs Goliath story told with epic grandeur and surprising flashes of shockingly visceral grit.
Grit Meets Grace: A Flawed but Formidable Feminist Odyssey
Let’s get one thing straight – Alejandro Monteverde’s Cabrini is no demure Sunday school tale. From the powdery clouds of flour that choke the opening convent scene to the unblinking depiction of Five Points’ grimy cesspools, the director pulls no punches in transporting viewers to the deeply visceral world of late 19th century New York.
Aided by Gorka Gómez Andreu’s rich but rarely romanticized cinematography, Monteverde paints an odyssey that’s starkly beautiful yet unflinching in its realism. The grittiness grounds what could have dissolved into pious cliché, continually reminding us that sainthood was hard-won through backbreaking toil and unspeakable suffering.
At the heart of this pilgrimage beats a performance of quiet resilience by Cristiana Dell’Anna. The Italian actress sidesteps cheap martyrdom, imbuing Cabrini with an earthy determination that transcends the habit. Her transformation from meek petitioner to indefatigable force is a masterclass in restraint, conveying forests of steely resolve through the slightest crinkle of an eye.
While Dell’Anna owns the throughline, Monteverde populates the periphery with a rogues’ gallery of pungent character turns that elevate the film. David Morse’s beleaguered Archbishop masterfully wrestles with institutional inertia. Giancarlo Giannini infuses the papal scenes with an avuncular wryness. And John Lithgow? Well, that old lion simply devours the scenery as the blusteringly xenophobic Mayor Gould.
Yet as memorable as these supporting roles are, a few hiccups keep Cabrini’s direction from achieving full-blown transcendence. The film’s three-hour runtime lends an episodic, occasionally rambling quality that dulls dramatic momentum. And while Monteverde avoids overtly sanctifying his subject, Cabrini’s near-total lack of interiority prevents her from ever feeling like a fully realized, flesh-and-blood woman.
Still, such flaws are dwarfed by the sheer ambition and artistry on display. For a passion project emerging from the often-insular faith-based sphere, Cabrini swings for aesthetic heights rarely reached by modern religious dramas. Monteverde’s feminist epic may stumble, but it soars more often than not.
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Sumptuous Canvas Marred by Occasional Brushstrokes of Excess
From the moment Cabrini’s golden-hued opening frames bathe the screen in buttery warmth, you know you’re in for a lush visual feast. Cinematographer Gorka Gómez Andreu paints every divine inspiration and hellish adversity in rapturous strokes, his camera gliding seamlessly from the heavenly glow of candle-lit chapels to the mustard-tinged purgatory of Five Points’ slums.
And what deliriously baroque spaces those are! Production designer Carlos Lagunas has sculpted an astonishing recreation of grimy, turn-of-the-century New York that would make Gangs-era Scorsese soil himself. Each whiff of tenement squalor, eachango-lined floorboard exudes a cloying, nearly palpable reek of authenticity.
Not to be outshone, costume designer Alisha Silverstein outfits the entire ensemble with exquisite period wardrobes that pulse with personality. From the elaborate coutourier confections draped on One Percent philanthropists to the humble yet dignified cassocks donned by the nuns, every stitch strengthens the film’s enveloping sense of total immersion.
Even the aural realm soars under the ministerial grandeur of Gene Back’s symphonic score. Boasting the soul-shivering force of Verdi at his most rapturous, Back’s compositions waltz nimbly between the sacred and profane. Lush string-swept hosannas swell into craggy brass-blasted requiems that seem to mimic the clamor and anguish echoing through Five Points’ cramped arteries.
And yet…for all its ravishing, museum-quality craftsmanship, Cabrini occasionally stumbles into the pitfalls of too much ostentation. The bloated 145-minute runtime lends the film an indulgent, stained-glass-as-kaleidoscope quality where immaculate details start to bleed into visual and narrative excess. One can’t help feeling the material might have enjoyed leaner, more potent dramatic heft at a tighter 2-hour running time.
But such overindulgence ultimately proves the magnum opulent flaw in an otherwise dessert-bar-level decadent production that few could ever afford, let alone consume in its entirety. Monteverde and his artisans have forged a banquet so visually and aurally transporting, you’d gladly fast for a month just to grow hungry enough to appreciate it.
A Mirror for Our Modern Plagues
On its face, Cabrini is a sweeping historical saga about a tenacious woman who quite literally sainted herself battling misogyny, xenophobia, and civic apathy over a century ago. But don’t be fooled – this epic’s resonances cut far deeper than mere antiquarian curiosity.
For all its gilded opulence and antiquated setting, Alejandro Monteverde’s film casts an uncomfortably revealing light on societal cancers that continue metastasizing to this day. The rampant discrimination, otherization of immigrants, and patriarchal subjugation that Cabrini so fearlessly combatted? Pull back the veil and you’ll find these demons still holding insidious dominion in 2023 America.
At its molten core, this is a film about the dehumanizing cost of hate – how fear-mongering rhetoric breeds indifference at best, outright cruelty at worst. It’s all there in the way Lithgow’s repulsively smug Mayor Gould relishes the deaths of immigrant children or the searing prologue image of a young boy futilely wheeling his dying mother’s body through apathetic crowds.
Yet for every gut-punch of hate, Cabrini counters with a transcendent display of the resilience and compassion such toxicity ineffectively tries to extinguish. This is ultimately an ode to the feminine tenacity that speakers often loftily praise yet rarely afford agency or opportunity – as Cabrini herself bitterly notes when told she’d have made “an excellent man.”
By refusing to sugar-coat harsh realities yet anchoring its protagonist’s quest in empathy, Monteverde mounts a stirring clarion call for faith not as empty dogma, but as a wellspring of humanitarian activism. It posits sainthood not as a beatified ideal, but as the courageous embodiment of conviction over convenient cowardice.
So make no mistake – for all its aged aesthetic trappings, Cabrini is perhaps the most vibrantly relevant film you’ll see this year. Prepare to be shaken from complacency and emboldened to challenge the insidious prejudices that fester like a chronic illness through society’s flawed body. This is sainted medicine we all desperately need to imbibe.
An Admirable But Flawed Glimpse at Saintly Determination
For all its sumptuous craftsmanship and laudable real-world resonance, Cabrini is ultimately a beautiful portrait lacking the final Sistine brush strokes of a true masterwork. Alejandro Monteverde’s undeniably ambitious epic soars highest when viscerally immersing viewers in the grim, hopeless trenches battled by its indomitable subject. Cristiana Dell’Anna’s understated yet forceful performance as the quietly determined titular nun cements Cabrini as an inspiring model of feminine conviction overcoming misogynistic adversity.
Where the film falters is in its slight failure to render that subject as fully fleshed and human as she deserves. For all the exquisite period detailing, the movie’s carefully preserved hagiographic veneer prevents it from achieving the transcendent emotional impact of a more vulnerably realized character study.
Still, such minor missteps pale beside Cabrini’s considerable achievements. By framing social justice through the lens of an uplifting spiritual journey, Monteverde has fashioned a modern parable urgently relevant to society’s most pressing plagues. For those able to push past the glacial runtime, the rewards are hard-won yet utterly edifying. Heart, soul and dazzling eye candy – what more could you want from a cinematic saint?
The Review
Cabrini
Cabrini is an ambitious, visually sumptuous epic that transports viewers to the harsh realities of turn-of-the-century New York through the inspirational lens of its trailblazing namesake nun. While a tad overlong and occasionally hindered by hagiographic restraint, Alejandro Monteverde's passion project still emerges as a stirring testament to unbreakable feminine perseverance in the face of prejudice. By anchoring Francesca Cabrini's defiant crusade for social justice in raw, visceral authenticity, the film distills universally resonant themes of faith, compassion, and the timeless human struggle for dignity. It's a flawed but formidable piece of filmmaking that deserves to be experienced on the biggest screen possible.
PROS
- Visually stunning cinematography and production design that transports viewers to late 19th century New York
- Powerful lead performance by Cristiana Dell'Anna as the determined Mother Cabrini
- Explores resonant themes of faith, feminism, and fighting discrimination
- Unflinching depiction of the harsh realities faced by immigrants at the time
- Excellent supporting performances, especially John Lithgow as the villainous Mayor
- Sweeping, emotional musical score by Gene Back
CONS
- Overlong runtime of 145 minutes causes some pacing issues
- Slightly hagiographic portrayal prevents a fully fleshed-out character study
- Some overly melodramatic plot devices and forced foreshadowing
- Limited insight into Cabrini's internal struggles and motivations
- A few one-dimensional supporting characters
