Cabrini review – absorbing hagiography of the first US saint to be canonised

Biopic of an Italian nun who moves to New York to build orphanages in the slums portrays her as wholly holy in her mission

Released in the UK to coincide with International Women’s Day, this biopic of Italian nun Francesca Saverio Cabrini, also known as Mother Cabrini (1850-1917), is literally a hagiography. Cabrini, played by Cristiana Dell’Anna, was canonised a saint in 1946, making her the first US citizen to be sanctified. But don’t let the religious angle put you off too much. In fact, the film is reasonably critical of certain members of the clergy who stood in the way of Cabrini’s charitable goals, including Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini) and the Archbishop of New York, Michael Corrigan (Swiss army knife supporting actor David Morse).

Then again, Cabrini is presented as pretty much wholly (even holy) good, a fierce little creature who would let nothing impede her aim to build orphanages, hospitals and other charitable institutions to help the poor. Surely, given she was a human being, there must have been some dark side? A little too much of the sin of pride, perhaps? A sin of omission or two, maybe, which stopped her from noticing wrongdoing within her institutions? Lord knows there was plenty of that to go round in late 19th- andearly 20th-century orphanages and the like. If, however, you can suspend such scepticism, Cabrini’s story is rather absorbing and the film offers a lushly mounted portrait of life in 1880s New York, when immigration was just as much of a contentious issue as it is today.