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Saw the movie last night. It was good but...

I really would have liked seeing more of the faith that drove her rather than just her ambition to help children. I mean, atheists can see impoverished children and be motivated to help. We hardly see Cabrini praying or drawing on her faith to see herself through challenges.
Further, they made her into a Mary Sue. Other than money, she needs no one else and the other women in her order fall into the background. With only one or two exceptions, ALL of the men in this movie are feckless or outright evil. In this respect, you'd think this was a Marvel film.

Thanks for the review. I agree with your assessment. I saw the film last night. Overall, I felt it was too dark and brooding. It spent a lot of time on how Italian immigrants were mistreated by the evil "white men" in NYC. At no point did the film insinuate that the issue with the immigrants was the Masonic hatred of Catholics -- which it largely was. Indeed, what motivated Mother Cabrini was mostly unexplored. The only inferences one could draw is that she was motivated by a desire to help other Italians -- so she was running an Italian NGO in America.

You're right about the Mary Sue aspect as well. God offers her no help. Whatever she accomplishes, she does via the force of her own will. That is not a Catholic mentality at all--and I'm sure the real Mother Cabrini would have been horrified at being portrayed that way.

Worst of all, at the end, she achieves her final victory via blackmail -- threatening the mayor of NYC that she will unleash a negative publicity campaign on him unless he lays off. The mayor (who is portrayed as a racist political animal) is impressed by Mother's tactics.

I have no idea how much of the above is actually true to life, but it didn't strike me as a particularly heroic tale of sanctity.