Cabrini Movie Review

If Cabrini had been made by most movie studios, I would conclude that the writers were ignorant of Christianity. But given that it was made by “Angel Studios,” a Christian studio that produced The Chosen, I must conclude that they are ignorant of Catholicism, which is an unfortunate shortcoming when the movie is about a Catholic Saint.

I will admit that before I watched this movie, I knew little about Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini except that she was a religious sister who founded many Catholic institutions, and she was one of the first American Saints canonized. But even what little I knew going into the movie was enough to debunk the Cabrini portrayed. No Missionary worth her salt would ever utter the words “We must believe in ourselves” as she did in this film.

The Cabrini in this movie was more Pelagian, with a dash of feminism, than Catholic. She invoked her being a woman probably three times as much as she invoked God. She uttered the name “Jesus” precisely one time, and it was in Italian. The movie showed her praying just once, and that was before a meal. It seemed that every sentence she spoke began with “I” and she was quick to glorify her actions with no due credit to God.

My criticism might come off as ironic to my few readers given how critical I have been in the past about Christian movies being too “on the nose.” But if you are going to make a movie based on a religious sister, you are not doing the viewing audience a disservice by portraying her as she truly was.

My complaints about Christian movies’ heavy-handedness in their message is as much a Theological criticism as it is an artistic one. The role of grace in the Christian life is perpetually debated, but many Christian movies use grace as a cure-all for life’s hardships. Cabrini did the opposite by removing the role of grace altogether.

For Christian storytelling, human action versus divine will should not be a difficult line to walk. If there is a disparity between the two, then it’s the job of the Christian to unite them. There would be no contradiction if Cabrini focused on Saint Frances Cabrini’s faith as well as her works, and it would not be an artistic sacrifice to seek to glorify God above the Saint, as I have no doubt Saint Frances Cabrini would have wanted.

Truly, the Apostle James tells us “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:20). But as Romans 4 makes clear, no great act of God was achieved without faith.

Overall, this movie stunk of the Protestant strawman of Catholicism that we believe we are saved by works. I do believe that the writers were attempting to be charitable in their portrayal of Catholics, but it was a charity that seemed to be rooted in ignorance of Catholic teaching.

Aside from the theology, the writing of Cabrini was not good. Even if I was not watching a movie ostensibly about a Catholic Saint, I would be tired of hearing “Because I’m a woman?” as it was repeated over and over and over. At one point, in two minutes, the line “Rats have it better than children” is repeated four times word for word, only to be repeated at the end of the movie as well. There were also jumpy, inconsistent, and unfinished character arcs for every character, except for Cabrini who had no character arc to speak of.

Besides the writing, the movie was excellent. It was well-acted and beautifully shot, and the score was enough to make me feel for certain characters when the writing gave me little of them to grab hold of. But cinema is a storytelling art, and stories live or die by the writing. In Cabrini’s case, it died.

Score: 4/10