“Cabrini” a moving biopic of superhero for the poor
Cristiana Dell’anna in “Cabrini.”
From Alejandro Monteverde of the recent hit “Sound of Freedom” comes “Cabrini,” an undeniably moving biographical film about America’s first saint, played with great power and panache by Neapolitan actor Cristiana Dell’anna (“The King of Laughter”). She is plucked from her native Lombardy by Pope Leo VIII (the great Giancarlo Giannani) and sent to New York City where millions of Italians had passed through Ellis Island only to find menial jobs, if not abject poverty.
We see a boy named Paolo (Federico Ielapi) rushing his dying mother in a cart and being refused treatment at a New York City hospital. Abandoned Italian children in the city sleep in storm drains. The overwrought score by Gene Back (“Burning Man the Musical”) is only getting started.
Whatever its excesses, “Cabrini” is always centered and given weight, significance and dignity by the fine performance of Dell’anna, a regular on Italian TV’S “Gomorrah.” Almost drowned as a child and afflicted with weak lungs, “Mother” Cabrini is paradoxically a tiny tower of strength, who will not be denied her chance to make the world a better place by providing a haven for abandoned children.
Sent to the dangerous slum known as Five Points (familiar to fans of Martin Scorsese’s 2002 entry “Gangs of New York”), Cabrini and her young nuns rehabilitate an orphanage space and open a small hospital. With almost no support from the Catholic archdiocese or its Irish-american Archbishop Michael Corrigan (an excellent David Morse), Cabrini makes a difference and saves one adolescent named Vittoria (a breakthrough turn by Romana Maggiora Vergano) from prostitution.
The film, which switches from Italian spoken in Italy to English (mostly) in the Untied States, is nothing new in terms of inspirational dramas. But after years of superhero films, it’s refreshing to see a drama about a real superhero played by this sly powerhouse of an actor. Dell’anna stands firmly before Pope and Archbishop alike, daring them to underestimate her. Mexico-born director Monteverde, who is partial to stately compositions, has a strong sense of the geography of New York City. In a horse-drawn street car, Cabrini travels up to 53rd Street for her first visit to the dismissive Corrigan. In just a few shots, Monteverde gives us a sense of how Cabrini and her nuns create a space where frightened children can feel safe and cherished. Education is a crucial element in Cabrini’s philosophy.
Cabrini enlists a reporter