For generations of Chicagoans, the name “Cabrini” instantly conjures thoughts of the Cabrini-Green Homes on the Near North Side that unfortunately became a notorious symbol of failed public housing, with a reputation for violence that sometimes made for national headlines, before the last high-rise building in the complex was closed in 2011. On the pop-culture front, the iconic 1970s TV show “Good Times” featured shots of Cabrini-Green in the credits, and the 1992 film “Candyman” was set in the housing project.
What’s almost lost to history when we discuss the Cabrini-Green neighborhood is that it was named after labor leader William Green and Frances Xavier Cabrini, the pioneering Italian American nun who was the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church some three decades after her death from malaria at age 67 in Columbus Hospital in Chicago, which she had founded in 1905.
The biopic “Cabrini” is a beautiful reminder of the human being behind the name — a small, sickly immigrant who lived in a time when the patriarchy’s word was first and final (especially within the Church) yet became an unstoppable force who would not take no for an answer as she built some 67 hospitals, schools and orphanages around the world. Inspired by true events, the sweeping and comprehensive film from director Alejandro Monteverde (“Sound of Freedom”) tells the story of Mother Cabrini’s life long before the shrines and the tributes.
The Italian actress Cristiana Dell’Anna turns in a stunningly effective, movie-star performance in a film that is reminiscent of old-fashioned religious biopics such as “The Song of Bernadette” and “Joan of Arc.” To be sure, there are moments when the messaging gets heavy-handed and there’s a bit too much speechifying and we’re squarely in hagiography territory — but then again, “hagiography” literally means “biography of saints.”
In the 1880s, having already co-founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Cabrini lobbies Pope Leo XIII (the great Giancarlo Giannini) to send her to China to establish missions, but the pope tells her to first make inroads in New York City. Accompanied by a small team of sister nuns, Cabrini sets up camp in the filthy and violent slums of Five Points (this would be about 25 years after the events depicted in “Gangs of New York”), where conditions are so intolerable that even the rats have it better than Italian immigrant families, as one observer puts it. (This later becomes a rallying cry and a newspaper headline.)
Facing racism, sexism and institutionalized poverty every step of the way, Cabrini is determined to build a facility that will provide health care and education to the local immigrant community, and she’s in it for the long haul — even though her lungs are in terrible condition and a physician has already told her it would be a miracle if she lived more than a couple of years.
The screenplay by Rod Barr ladles on some heavy melodrama, e.g., when Cabrini befriends the sex worker Vittoria (Romana Maggiora Vergano), who must resort to violence to escape the brutal abuse of her pimp and eventually becomes a kind of Mary Magdalene figure. Like many a biopic, “Cabrini” is a mixture of fact-based major plot points and fictionalized conceits; the always-formidable David Morse plays the real-life Archbishop Corrigan, who doesn’t want to upset the balance of power and encourages Mother Cabrini not to rattle too many cages, while another of our best character actors, John Lithgow, plays the villainous bigot Mayor Gould, a fictional character who makes the mistake of underestimating Cabrini’s willpower — and her political and business acumen. (At one point, the mayor begrudgingly says, “You would have made an excellent man,” and Cabrini replies, “Men could never do what we do.” Sure, it’s corny, but you kind of want to applaud.)
Whether Cabrini is lobbying wealthy second-generation immigrants for funding, returning to Rome to raise, um, heck or working herself to exhaustion as she oversees construction of a new institution, she is a force who seems to spend little time praying or engaging in ceremony. She’s too busy trying to help forge a new world. Dell’Anna conveys Cabrini’s faith and her resolve, and her bravery in standing up to prejudice and misogyny, without turning her into a one-dimensional superhero in nun’s clothing. This is a great-looking film; the production team did a remarkable job of using Buffalo locations to re-create Five Points and other neighborhoods, and the cinematography is appropriately golden-hued. Mostly, though, it’s the performances that carry the day.
In September of 1946, two months after Mother Cabrini was canonized, more than 100,000 gathered at Soldier Field for a Holy Hour celebration. “Cabrini” the film is a fine reminder of why she was so revered by so many.
