Maria Full of Grace
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Movie Reviews of Maria Full of Grace
Movie Review: Outstanding portrait of a young woman
Summary: 5 Stars
"Maria llenas eres de gracia," is one of the outstanding films of the new century, and one of the best I've seen in months. Joshua Marston, who wrote the script and directed, took a commercial idea--that of telling a story about the "mulas" who smuggle drugs into the US by swallowing pellets of cocaine or (in this case) heroin wrapped in latex which they later excrete. Should one of them burst before it is passed out of the body, it is likely the mule will die. It's a risky business in more ways than one, and only somebody desperate or foolish would do it.
So the first thing that Marston must do is establish Maria's character in such a way that we can believe she would do something like this. She is, on the one hand, an ordinary 17-year-old Columbian girl who works stripping the thorns from the stems of roses in a factory. She lives at home with her mother, sister and her sister's baby. She has a boyfriend. She has to work to help support the family. On the other hand she is a headstrong person, a pretty girl with a head on her shoulders.
But Maria is not exactly desperate. She is a bit of a gambler, somewhat foolish, no doubt, but she is also a strong person with great personal integrity. Marston allows us to see in the beginning of the film that she will take chances that others won't. She climbs up onto the roof of a building, a climb her boyfriend is afraid to make. We see her tell her boss (more or less) to take this job and shove it when he won't let her go to the bathroom. And we realize shortly thereafter why she needs to go to the bathroom more often than usual. We watch her tell her boyfriend about her predicament, and she does it in such a way that we can tell that she is searching for how he really feels. And when she finds out he doesn't really love her, at least doesn't love her the way she wants to be loved, she leaves him.
But now she is in a fix. Her job helped pay for the family's bills. Now the situation is set. Her character is set. The premise of the film can unwind: and so she meets a young man on a motorcycle who tells her how she can make some serious money smuggling drugs into the US.
Imagine how the average Hollywood director would fashion a movie from such a premise. There would be brutality, gun fights, car chases. Cardboard villains would exploit Maria and others like her. There would be some heroics and perhaps a knight in shining armor would save Maria.
But that is not how Marston plays it. He opts for realism and he doesn't wallow in the violence or the exploitation. He keeps the focus on Maria and her personal struggle to find herself and to deal with the circumstances she has gotten into. The characters are real, the situations are authentic, and the details are closely observed and realistic. We see Maria practice swallowing large globe grapes. We see the people in the drug-smuggling business and some of the other mules. We see the security people at the airport and the young men who watch the girls until the pellets are passed. There is no glamor among these characters. It is clear they are patterned after real people who could actually be in this ugly business. And in the end we see the triumph of Maria's character.
What makes this such an outstanding movie is not only the careful, clear and veracious way that Marston tells the story, but the compelling performance by Catalina Sandino Moreno who plays Maria. She is a very talented young actress who has the kind of beauty that suggests something close to nobility of character, if I may use such an old-fashioned phrase. It is this quality of hers that Marston captures and emphasizes. The result is one of the most arresting performances I've seen in quite a while. Moreno appears entirely real, completely divorced from any phony celluloid heroine. She became to me--and this is what all great actors can do--someone I know, someone I care about, and I was filled with emotion as the movie ended.
"This is a movie about a girl becoming a woman," is the way Moreno expressed it. Marston puts it this way, "I realized...I was making a film about a girl who was doing something universal in trying to figure out the meaning of her life." This is really what the story is about: becoming a woman in this world of risks and trade-offs, of dangers and obligations.
A movie that is a work of art and worthy of something more than the diversion of an evening should affect the viewer emotionally, intellectually and artistically. Maria Full of Grace is such a movie, a movie that comes along perhaps once a year, or perhaps only once in several years. It's that good.
By all means see this for Catalina Sandino Moreno who was nominated for Best Actress by the Academy in 2005 but lost out to Hilary Swank for her performance in Million Dollar Baby (2004). And see it for Joshua Marston who made it real.
Movie Review: Sad, but never monotonous; poignant, but never watered-down.
Summary: 5 Stars
'Maria Full of Grace' is one of those cinematic gems that is nearly perfect, made even more special thanks to a stunning acting debut that is exciting in its sense of refreshing hope. The actress I am referring to is the incredible Catalina Sandino Moreno, who gives a nuanced performance as Maria Alvarez, a girl who is impregnated by her loser boyfriend, Juan (Wilson Guerrero), becomes fed up with her living situation, and decides to find opportunity in Bogota, her nation of Columbia's sprawling capital. On the way, she meets a local man she had danced with the previous night at a club and he informs her of his connections with a group of people who pay women to travel. "Travel?" she repeats. To her, this sounds like the beginning of a glorious new horizon. But she comes to find she is going to be a mule, a woman exploited by the drug business as a means of transporting drugs. However, she does not seem to care. America is hope. Her job requires that she is sent there, so she complies with the drug lord's wishes and swallows one pellet-sized drug container after another in a sequence that is hard to watch because of its painful, emotional subtleties perfectly emphasized by all involved.
Throughout the film you feel more and more of these discreetly executed humanities pulsating from beneath the surface. For instance, I have not been more affected by a plane ride than when Maria, her friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega), and two other mules (including an experienced, friendly mule Lucy, played with power by Guilied Lopez) are all scattered about a plane bound for America in pain from the sixty or so pellets stuck in their empty stomachs. The three central woman share glances, and each actress manages to maintain raw sympathy despite what were obviously terrible and immoral career choices; we feel for their desire for a better life, of which America is a beacon of in their eyes. Perhaps the only one of the three women we are not able to fully care for is Blanca. Though it is obvious she became a mule in order to be with her best friend Maria, I do not feel Vega's performance was strong enough to convey every emotional aspect of her character. She felt unrelentlessly annoying, in some moments. My friend and I kept whispering, "Stop ruining everything! Shush!" In a way Vega was simply one-note. A pity, because she is the film's only true weakness.
The film's strongest aspect is by far Ms. Moreno. Despite the fact that this is her very first movie, she appears flawless in her intensity and strength. Her character, Maria, is someone who had to grow into a new, intimidating environment; she had to learn how to deal with emotions and situations that are not normal for her a seventeen-year-old. Ms. Moreno makes you care deeply for Maria, and her transformation is an august, breathtaking one.
The writing is yet another plus in 'Maria Full of Grace.' It maintained striking realism, and some of the more simple words were chilling in their power. Consider when Juan and Maria decide whether or not they are going to have sex on top of a building's roof, high up from the ground. Maria grows stubborn and starts to climb. Juan is reluctant, and simply says, "You're going to come down the same way you came up--alone." I was blown away by the depth in those words. They were symbolic of some of the film's message, and they resonated strongly as I walked out of the theater.
As a whole, 'Maria' is one of the most poignant films all year. It is swift in its execution, the ending is perfectly ambiguous, and the performances, apart from Vega's, are top-notch; it even manages to sneak in some important themes of honest grandeur, such as immigration. Ultimately, it sets out to make us realize that when people buy drugs, they are supporting those who take advantage of the dreams of people who simply want to escape the imprisonment of a life they would give anything to escape from. Lucy, the experienced mule, began trafficking drugs so she could travel to New York City and find her sister. Each time she arrived to drop off her pellets, she would gain only the courage to arrive at her sister's door. Not once in her two trips did she knock. She couldn't tell the sister she loved and hadn't seen for four years why she had inexplicably appeared. She was ashamed. 'Maria' makes it known that when people buy drugs, they don't support the exploitation alone, but also the progressive destruction of a person's humanity. The concept becomes truly mind-blowing.
Movie Review: Sometimes reality is the toughest pill to swallow...
Summary: 5 Stars
I got into a heated debate with a friend the other day about the difference between subtlety and lifelessness. He got all up in arms when I labeled Ed Harris's nomination for `The Truman Show' a joke. Now as many of you know, I love the movie, but I felt that Harris really added nothing to the film. He was less subtle and more hollow. So, when he said that I wouldn't appreciate subtleness if it hit me in the face I rattled off this little film and told him to bask in the glory that is Catalina Sandino Moreno and her brilliant use of subtle forcefulness. So, we watched the film together, and my adoration of her performance was deepened and I think I made my point.
This performance may be quiet, but it is in no way shape or form `hollow'.
`Maria, Llena Eres de Gracia' is a brilliant film, truly, from start to finish one of the most honest and raw films I have seen in recent years. The film feels so natural, which only adds to the emotional destruction the audience goes through while watching it. There is nothing that feels Hollywoodized or embellished in that overly dramatic heavy handed way that most films are done today. It is simply raw and gritty and truth; pure truth.
Here we are told the story of young Maria, a seventeen-year-old Columbian who lives with her mother and grandmother, her sister and her young nephew. She works hard every day dethroning flowers only to pay more than her share at home. When Maria winds up pregnant she is faced with a decision. Her boyfriend isn't the marrying type, and her job is less that satisfactory so she decides to leave town and try to find work elsewhere. That is when she is given the opportunity to make some quick and `easy' money. She is asked to become a mule, swallowing pellets of heroine and smuggling them into the states. She accepts, and her harrowing journey is one of danger, fear and ultimately self awakening.
The film, much like Moreno, is very subtle. There is nothing here that is over-the-top or any mere scene that begs for your attention the way that most films produced today do. The story is told in a very focused yet very earnest way. We see everything (almost everything) in a very point-blank manor. Nothing is glamorized, nothing is sugar-coated; nothing is depicted as anything other than reality. I think I first realized this when Maria has to wash off pellets after she went to the bathroom and then re-swallow them in the airplane bathroom.
Fearless.
I want to take a minute to applaud the Academy for nominating Moreno back in 2004 for Best Lead Actress. I often give the Academy a hard time for nominating gimmicky and obvious performances that take no imagination and really require no stretch of talent, but in 2004 they nominated five VERY worthy performances (albeit handing possibly the least worthy the award). Catalina Sandino Moreno delivers such a spellbindingly pure performance, never reaching too far and coming off as forced but always keeping her characters innocence and naivety a central part of her performance. Maria is sincere and genuine, yet confused and determined. This reads beautifully on the screen. She is gives such a radiant performance, one that is nuanced to perfection and such a dynamic force without being abrupt and outlandish.
First time actress Moreno (yes, this is her DEBUT performance) and newcomer writer/director Joshua Marston (he had one credit under his belt before this) are a brilliant team who mesh so well with one another to create a film that reaches the heart and stirs the emotions and will remain utterly unforgettable. Watching Maria grow as a person throughout this treacherous journey may be hard to take, but in the end the reward is beautiful beyond words.
Movie Review: An Extraordinarily Powerful Film & An Amazing Acting Debut!
Summary: 5 Stars
Catalina Sandino Moreno recently won a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her stunning portrayal of Maria in Joshua Marston's "Maria Full of Grace." This was a debut performance for Ms. Sandino Moreno, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, who developed an interest in acting while in high school. She subsequently studied theater and acting and caught Marston's eye when she auditioned for this part. He took a risk by casting the inexperienced young actress as Maria and, in return, she delivered - bringing tremendous depth to the complex and demanding role.
Seventeen year-old Maria Alvarez works on a flower plantation outside Bogotá, stripping thorns off roses in preparation for shipping. It's a dead-end job and her future doesn't look to improve much. A spirited, independent young women, with a sense of adventure, she is obviously bored with the work and her abusive supervisor, disenchanted with her immature boyfriend, and fed-up with her family, which receives almost her entire paycheck. When Maria discovers she is pregnant, she accepts the offer to carry drugs to the US as a mule. There is no way, however, that she could have imagined the nightmarish and threatening world she becomes involved with.
Films about the drug trade abound, from this year's "El Rey," (also up for an Academy Award), to "Traffic," "Veronica Guerin," "Trainspotting," "Blow," even 1971's extraordinary "The French Connection," to name a few. However, "Maria Full of Grace" offers a totally different perspective on the business of drugs and drug smuggling. Even though the primary focus is on the mules here, a much broader picture is portrayed. It is painful, and extremely intense, to watch the desperate Maria force herself to swallow almost 70 thumb-sized pellets filled with finely powered heroin. She takes medication first to slow her digestion, all the while under the watchful eye of her runner. The danger of discovery and death is ever present, as is the potential risk to her family if anything goes wrong. A Colombian mule can earn between $5000. to $8000. per trip. Considering that the average annual per capita income is around $2,000, one gets a general understanding of why the girl might imperil herself to this extent. I felt a terrible sense of sadness throughout much of the movie. This particular film does conclude on a hopeful note, I think - for Maria anyway.
Marston, who directed from his own script, takes us through the entire harrowing run in a manner so realistic that I felt I was watching a documentary at times. The building tension on the commercial plane flight to New York had me literally on the edge of my seat. And Catalina Sandino Moreno is a natural - absolutely gifted! This film is outstanding - certainly
one of the best movies to be made on the subject. The supporting cast also deserves kudos, with special mention to Yenny Paola Vega, who plays the tenacious Blanca, and to Orlando Tobon - who is not a professional actor. His character, Don Fernando, is taken from fact not fiction. In Jackson Heights, Queens, Orlando Tobon is called the "mayor of Little Colombia." He makes his living as an accountant and travel agent, but he also serves his community as a social service counselor and all-purpose guide to many of the thousands of Colombian immigrants who come to live in his ethnically diverse Queens neighborhood. Tobon is also known as "the undertaker of the mules" for his work helping families repatriate the remains of Colombians who die smuggling drugs into New York.
JANA
Movie Review: Catalina Sandino Moreno's compelling debut performance
Summary: 5 Stars
In this week's "Entertainment Weekly" Stephen King picked "Maria Full of Grace" as his favorite film of 2004, which is certainly an interesting thing to know before watching this independent film from writer-director Joshua Marston. The picture on the DVD cover shows Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno) posed as if she were about to receive Holy Communion. Only instead of receiving the host Maria is about to swallow a pellet containing heroin wrapped in the finger of a latex glove. That particular image is not present in the film with as much symbolism as it is on the cover, but it does represent the crucible of Maria's odyssey.
Maria is 17 and works in Colombia picking the thorns off of roses before they are shipped overseas. Although she is clearly a bright girl, Maria discovers that she is pregnant. To make things worse her boyfriend is a loser, her boss at work is a jerk, and her family needs her to provide money. So after Maria quits her job she is introduced to a man in Bogotá who will give her $5,000 for flying to New York City with 62 of those pellets in her stomach as a "mule" for a drug lord. For Maria that amount is a virtual fortune and seems worth the risk that one of those pellets could break in her stomach and kill her. So she practices swallow grapes so that she will be able to do what needs to be done to get her money.
There will be several mules on this particular flight, a practice known as "shotgunning" that Marston learned about and which inspired his original script. The idea is that if you put several mules on the same plane and plan on U.S. Customs catching one of them, which would make it easier for the rest of the drugs to get through. Also on the plane with Maria are her friend, Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega), who is jealous of the money her friend is going to make, a mule on her third run, Lucy (Giulied Lopez), who wants to visit her sister in New York City, and at least one more experience drug smuggler.
"Maria Full of Grace" sets the stage for the big trip by paying attention to the process by which Maria first practices, and then swallows all those pellets. This serves to underscore how dangerous this is going to be and you know that something is going to go horribly wrong. It is just a question of how many of these girls will be dead by the time it is all over and what exactly Maria will do to earn the sobriquet of the title. Marston does touch on all of the mules on the plane, but the focus of the story is on Moreno and her compelling performance. Clearly Marston is out to make a point, but because this is a low-budget independent film he is forced to tell it simply. Ironically, his leading actress is so good that we are concerned more with her survival than any stinging indictment of the use of mules by Colombian drug cartels.
Catalina Sandino Moreno won the best actress award a the 2004 Berlin Film Festival along with Charlize Theron in "Monster," which is interesting simply because the performances are pretty much at opposite ends of the acting spectrum. Since "Maria Full of Grace" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2004, where it won the Audience Award, Moreno's performance would be eligible for the next Academy Awards. Usually Oscar nominations focus on movies released in December and as a rule ignore anything released before the Summer blockbuster season, but what Moreno did in this film might be too impressive to forget (Addendum: For once I was right and Moreno is nominated for Best Actress).