The Movie CABRINI Versus BARBIE and Other Observations
#CABRINI hits theaters March 8, 2024. Distributed by #AngelStudios
I had the opportunity to preview the movie CABRINI at the National Religious Broadcaster’s conference in Nashville last month. Until this movie, I had never heard of Mother Francesca Cabrini, who was the first American to be canonized by the Catholic church.
Growing up in an evangelical Protestant home, my childhood introduced me to Baptist missionaries such as Lottie Moon to China and my paternal grandparents, who were missionaries to South Africa during apartheid in the 1970s. I was familiar with Mother Theresa, not Mother Cabrini. I am not alone in my lack of knowledge about Mother Cabrini.
“The first time I read the screenplay, I was shocked that I did not know anything about her,” director Alejandro Monteverde said. “I wanted to use the power of cinema to tell her powerful story.”
The movie CABRINI, however, is not a debate about Mother Cabrini’s canonization. Instead, the film is a hero’s journey about the internal and external hardships that she faced in establishing an orphanage and hospital for Italian immigrants in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City in the 1890s. Her order’s success spawned a world-wide network that fulfilled her ambitious vision for an empire of hope. Distributed by Angel Studios, the movie CABRINI hits theaters March 8.
(BTW The representative from Angel Studios who spoke after the screening explained that CABRINI was made before the current illegal immigration crisis and is not intended to make a political statement about illegal immigration today.)
I highly recommend the film for both women and men.
“Cabrini had multiple battles all at the same time. She had a physical weakness. She could give in to her physical weakness or serve her purpose,” Monteverde reflected.
Her internal battle is why the movie can resonate with both men and women. Several times in her life, physicians told Cabrini that she had only two to five years to live. Instead of stewing over the likelihood of a short life from weak lungs, Cabrini rolled up her sleeves and got to work on her life’s purpose.
This internal conflict emerges early in the film, when the Pope questions whether her health is strong enough to endure a mission overseas.
“Your Holiness, we can serve our weakness, or we can serve our purpose, not both,” Cabrini powerfully responded. (She defied the predictions and died at age 67).
This particular viewpoint resonates with me. For those of you who know me personally, you are aware that for the past 16 years, I have struggled with daily waking migraine headaches. I wake up with a headache almost every day. The likeliest source is a birth defect in my skull called Chiari malformation. There are days when I want to write and work, but my headache is so strong that I can’t think clearly for hours at a time. A headache postponed this article a few times in the past week. I find myself putting off projects and tasks until I feel better. Sometimes I end up serving my weakness instead of my purpose. Other times, I’m able to push through the pain and focus on my family and professional work.
In addition to this movie’s message, one of the film’s strongest features is its cinematography. CABRINI is stunning to watch.
“This isn’t a movie. This is a motion painting,” Jordan Harmon, president of Angel Studios, explained of CABRINI’s beautiful, often sepia-toned cinematography. “Every single frame is a beautiful, gorgeous painting.”
COVID-19’s shutdowns in 2020 gave the producers and director a gift in the form of additional time to plan and orchestrate the shots. Many shots are one, long consecutive shot—a beautiful and difficult feat.
“I approached this film completely differently than anything I've ever done. Everything was choreographed,” Monteverde shared in an Angel Studio livestream weeks before the film’s release. Monteverde also directed the 2023 hit film, SOUND OF FREEDOM. “We did all the work on paper and when we arrived there (on set), we had shown up to execute.”
“Lighting on this film is also a character,” Monteverdi explained. He used light permeating into darkness in a strategic way to help tell the story of Cabrini bringing light to the orphans of New York.
At the time I watched CABRINI, I was working on the illustrations for a new children’s book about the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag, which was written in 1892, the same era as the movie. One of the reasons that Francis Bellamy wrote our flag’s pledge was to unite Italian immigrant children with children whose families had been in America for generations. The pledge gave all Americans an opportunity to affirm their loyalty to the USA. The visuals in my book look similar to a few of the film’s scenes.
This film can appeal to both women and men for another reason: characterization. The character Cabrini serves a similar purpose as Abraham Lincoln in the movie LINCOLN. In that film, Lincoln’s character does not substantially change. Rather, his actions result in other characters undergoing a change to emancipate slavery in the United States. Like Lincoln, Cabrini’s strength and heroic steadfastness leads others, such as the prostitute Victoria, to undergo a character change.
The movie MARY POPPINS operates in a similar pattern. Mary Poppins was the lead, the star of the show, but the father was the character who changed from a neglectful parent into a fully-engaged father because of Mary Poppins. Cabrini is a caped hero wearing a habit who changes others for the better.
Cabrini’s superpower is her selflessness, her willingness to fight for orphaned children, who live worse than rats on the streets of New York. She puts others above herself. She reflects her love for Christ by wearing a large cross around her neck in the film. Through her actions, she embodies Matthew 25:40. “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
Although CABRINI is a female empowerment movie, the film is a refreshing change from the recent BARBIE movie. While fun, Barbie’s journey was about self-discovery and narcissism, not selflessness. Between the two, the more admirable character is Cabrini.
“When parents bring their daughters to see this movie, my hope as a filmmaker is that the daughters will leave wanting to become like Cabrini and not like Barbie," Eduardo Verastegui, executive producer of Cabrini said on the film's red-carpet premiere in New York.
“This is the real feminist movement. Women are empowered by who? By God. When a woman is open to receive God so God can be the center of her life, miracles happen,” Verastegui said.
CABRINI is a self-sacrificing journey. In a fair and rational world, next year in 2025, CABRINI would win Oscars for best picture, best cinematography, best director, and best female lead actor. One of the actors in the film placed Mother Cabrini into the cannon of other real-life American heroes.
“In this day and age, it’s so rare to read a script let alone see a movie that is genuinely good. I mean, good intentions, an unironic celebration of an important person. This is Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass, people like that. And we are just not that aware of Mother Cabrini,” actor John Lithgow said. Lithgow played the mayor of New York City in the film. He is known for many roles, including playing Winston Churchill in THE CROWN.
Thanks to CABRINI the movie, more Americans will soon know her name and understand her contributions to American and world history. She embodied the creation clause in the Declaration of Independence, that all have unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“We are all human beings. We are all the same,” Cabrini declared.
If you would like to preview one of my new patriotic children’s books and consider writing a supportive quote, send an email to info@janecook.com. They are scheduled for release before Memorial Day 2024.