Squalor and decay are front and center in this effective, sobering immigration drama. Cabrini follows the canonized nun as she arrives to New York City in the early 20th century. Promised prosperity and greatness, Sister Cabrini instead finds starving children in rat-infested sewers and an Italian populace kept at the margins. She fights an uphill battle against a sexist papacy and bigoted city hall so that immigrants might have equitable pay, housing, and hospice care.
Ironic Italian jokes will probably not be funny to me anymore. How Cabrini depicts the grotesque, surreal racism faced by that community made me question everything I knew about this era of anti-Italian bigotry. So much arbitrary hatred has been lost to time, yet stories like this are important to remind us that "the other" never went away in America - it just changed forms. There's an alarming parallel here to the current plight of migrants in America, one that the film draws very intentionally.
The director's own observed reality and anxieties as a Mexican national help ground Cabrini in the tangible realm. At no point does the film feel like a removed wallow in suffering, but rather, a plea for the migrant adults struggling to keep work and children separated from their parents by the state. There's an authenticity here that's so often lost when making stories from this period, and as bleak as Cabrini can feel, it's always earned. For every Laken Riley, there are dozens of dead migrant women whose names we never learn.
There's a kineticism to Cabrini's camerawork, too, that elevates it above a dry and by-the-numbers historical drama. The camera is constantly shifting, moving through liminal spaces with fluid, graceful tracking shots. Confrontations between characters make wonderful use of perspective, as well. A scene where Cabrini shouts up to a city official from inside stands out, as it frames her as hopelessly small and lower than the man she's speaking to. And yet the scene shows how she commands herself, even with this diminutive position. All conveyed with the visual language of the film, working in tandem with an impactful script.
While the core demographic of this may be remiss to speculate on the sexual orientation of a saint, it is difficult to see Cabrini and sex worker Vittoria's relationship as strictly platonic. Love does not have to be sexual or physical to be romantic. How far Cabrini goes for this girl transcends friend and family - it is the kind of sacrifice only made in true care and true faith. Of course, this exemplifies the grace and love that would canonize her. But it's also a type of love not reserved for any other woman, and certainly not for any of the men.
Cabrini feels like something of a fluke, coming from Angel Studios. It's a film that centers and celebrates equity, inclusion, and many other values a more rightward Conservative Christian in modern America might have forgotten the biblical nature of. It's elevated above other faith based fare because of this, as well its artful camerawork and inspired performances. A good film about faith does not have to convert audiences; in fact, I'd wager those are the bad ones. Instead, it can be most effective to simply show a viewer where faith has taken others, then let them figure out their own relationship to belief.