Pope Leo is played in a wonderfully warm performance by the great Giancarlo Giannini, who gives “Cabrini” a jolt of life every time he appears on-screen. David Morse and John Lithgow also show up, as a recalcitrant archbishop and peevish New York mayor, respectively; they, along with various priests and bullying naysayers, exemplify the male power structure that Cabrini routinely confronted and shrewdly disarmed as she sought to treat New York’s impoverished immigrant population with generosity and respect. (The central conflict here is Cabrini’s attempts to fund and build her first hospital.)
Cristiana Dell’Anna brings a watchful sense of determination and calm to Cabrini, whom filmmaker Alejandro Monteverde, directing from Rod Barr’s script (the two co-wrote the film’s story), casts as an early feminist avatar. Audiences might remember Monteverde as the filmmaker behind last summer’s “Sound of Freedom”; that film became a huge hit but also got caught up in culture-war fights about QAnon and conspiracy theories. (The faith-based company Angel Studios released both films.) In this outing, Monteverde downplays his subject’s spirituality in favor of critiquing an insensitive, out-of-touch Catholic hierarchy and punitive immigration policies he clearly sees as all too relevant today.
As was the case with “Sound of Freedom,” the production values of “Cabrini” are solid, if obvious and uninspired: The narrative unfolds in a pageant-like series of expository scenes, filmed in subdued sepia tones, with Gene Back’s musical score providing prodigious swells of melodramatic bathos. The Big Bad Men who block Cabrini at every turn veer into Snidely Whiplash caricature, much as the evildoers in “Sound of Freedom” did. Still, as a straightforward biopic of a woman whose name is much better known than her story, “Cabrini” fulfills its mission with the same purposeful earnestness of its subject. It’s a movie even the most secular of humanists can love.
PG-13. At area theaters. Contains thematic material, some violence, profanity and smoking. In English and Italian with subtitles. 145 minutes.
