and a great way to celebrate Women’s History Month with teen daughters!
We JUST got home from seeing Cabrini. I’ve been nervously holding our (e-)tickets for weeks, worrying about how this would go over with the fam. (Let’s just say my last effort to incorporate “faith-filled” and “fun” into a Friday night at the movies didn’t go exactly as planned.) Would Sissy get off work in time? Would Molly’s attention span last the 2.5 hours? Would Daddy’s blossoming cold hold off? Would this be another Catholic movie with just a little too much cringe for my artsy, sophisticated MST3K-style film critic group?
THANKS BE TO GOD. This movie SLAPS. It really did! I am so relieved! Even teen approved! As in, Sissy says she is buying a poster of Mother Cabrini to hang next to her poster of Alan Cummings! (Yes, she is that weird.) And here I’ve been teaching about Mother Cabrini over and over for at least 100 years or so, and we all learned so much more about this bad-a$$ lady. Like, all Italian moms rolled into one.
2.5 hours went by like NOTHING.
Cristiano Dell’Anna does an amazing job of playing the part of Mother Francesca Cabrini. She argues her case to expand her missionary efforts outside her native Italy (apparently it was unheard of at that time, 1890s, for Italian women be missionaries in foreign lands). She must plea her case directly to Pope Leo XIII, whom Italian actor Giancarlo Giannini did a GREAT job portraying, and their lovely tea scene is the one of hundreds of beautifully designed sets and artfully shot scenes in this gorgeous film.
As a huge fan of learning and teaching history via stories, I loved having the opportunity for my girls to learn about this time period in U. S. History (Victorian/Turn of the Century fashion is my favorite) on the big screen, as a family. It is also a HUGE deal to me that they grow up hyper-aware of the many trials and travails of immigrants, both past and present, since, as the movie states both directly and indirectly multiple times, immigrants are the bones to this country, ALL our ancestors.
Cabrini is set in New York City, and I would love to hear what the locals up there have to say about the theater experience. There were some great one-liners that tickled my husband (Jersey boy) and me but were lost to this Central Ohio audience, such as when Mother was scolded, “And that is the last time New York will ever see and Italian Festival!” and when she proclaimed to an appalled Mayor Gould (John Lithgow) that someday, New York would have an Italian mayor!
My second favorite character was the beautiful Romana Maggiora Vergano who played a young prostitute named Vittoria. She aides the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from the first night they arrive in New York. I do not know that her role is as much fact as fiction, but the character is well-developed and provides an introduction to the shocking but profoundly well-done setting of the infamous poverty-stricken Five Points neighborhood in Manhattan. Vittoria’s heroic story of salvation and friendship with Mother Cabrini is also Oscar-worthy and one to celebrate with the women in your life.
Go see Cabrini! It’s mom, dad, and teen-approved! all 2.5 hours’ worth!