A Review of Cabrini -- A saintly biopic marred by boring Hollywood tropes

I, being of mostly German ethnicity, could go to either one. The Italian one was more cheerful and had better music, but was further from my apartment, so I usually ended up at the Irish one.

We saw the movie last weekend with some friends.

Had no expectation going in, but what I saw was a very well executed film—very high production values, earnestly acted, with a strong message of good.

The movie lacked the real and despicable Hollywood tropes of anti-Catholicism, Bible mocking, and sneering leftism.

The border is first and foremost on most of our minds, and at first the seeming pro-migrant message felt preachy, but in any other time and place all of us would admit we trace our roots to immigrants.

While the struggles between politicians and their ‘tribes’ vs. the ‘tribe’ of the pope, bishop, and Mother Cabrini lacked the pious genuflection you might have gotten had Spencer Tracy or Bing Crosby been the lead, the real struggle—in fact every struggle on earth—is ultimately among men and women.

Divine intervention, if it is to be had, is not actually obvious, and sometimes prayer can’t match grit, determination, and blood sweat and tears.

I give it 3.5 stars.

One funny thing. They mostly stayed bilingual but many on visiting Italy, to their parents towns, whether in Sicily or Calabria or the Alto Adige, the locals had trouble understanding them...

Yup. My mother had the same problem. She grew up bilingual in the US in the 1940s and 50s. When she spoke to her younger cousins in Italy in the 1990s, they all laughed at her Italian because it was so old-fashioned. It was as if we were speaking to someone who spoke Victorian English.

I lived for awhile in (rather small) suburb of Boston. This rather small suburb had two (rather small) Catholic churches. Why two rather small churches, instead of one larger one, you ask? Well, obviously: one was Irish, the other was Italian.

No surprise there. That's how the neighborhoods worked in Boston as well. Churches in the North End were all Italian. Churches in "Southie" were all Irish. These days, however, I think actual Catholics are as rare as hen's teeth in Boston. It's sad.

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