Maria Full of Grace
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Movie Reviews of Maria Full of Grace
Movie Review: Honest, harrowing, understated film
Summary: 5 Stars
"Maria Full of Grace" is brutal, understated, unflinching cinema. It grabbed my attention without reaching for it; it held my attention without ostentation, without the need for building music, slow motion, computer effects or an obvious soundtrack.
It is a scary, jolting dose of a reality - or what could be reality - where a young Columbian girl, Maria, just 17 years old, quits her job cutting and arranging flowers after being treated unfairly by her boss. Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) needs money to support her household, occupied by her mother, grandmother, sister and sister's baby, and she becomes desperate when she discovers she is pregnant.
A friend Maria meets at a party tells her about a difficult job she could do. He tells Maria she will need to transport tiny capsules of heroin - stored in her pregnant stomach - to New Jersey, a place, she is told, is just a "small town outside of New York."
Maria accepts the job, as do two other women she knows: one who is a friend, and one who is making a delivery to New Jersey for the third time.
First time writer/director Joshua Marston does not waste any time with meaningless, self-conscious, uneven scenes as many first-timers often do. In the first 10 minutes of the movie, I immediately liked Maria. I understood her character, her nuances, her worries, her hopes and her attitude. Moreno, as Maria, is a charming, comely and vulnerable teenager with whom I cared for and sympathized.
Since Maria's personality is well established in the first 30 minutes, and her choices stayed consistent and realistic throughout the movie, I believed each action she chose to take. I never shook my head or disagreed with any event in the plot; instead, I watched the unbearable tension unfold logically and skillfully.
I watched Maria standing in an airplane, sweating, nearly crying, trying to keep 60 heroin capsules in her stomach, thinking about her baby, worrying what could happen to her family if she threw up, worried that she could die if one tablet would break. I watched with unbreakable interest, completely invested in the characters and their gruesome situation.
"Maria Full of Grace" is not just engaging in its laudable moments of tension, disaster and disappointment - it also allows us to glimpse an intriguing and surprising story of an abject woman in a country we know little about.
In many instances, the film creates a powerful glimpse of the dichotomy of North America and South America, of Hispanics living among Caucasians. It's a startling, depressing vision, and although the differences are shown upon the backdrop of a young, scared, confused woman delivering heroin pills, "Maria Full of Grace" is able to maintain a documentary-like feel, where we are being edified about the difficult, and in this case, illegal, struggles some Columbian people endure.
But the movie never begs us to feel educated and aware; that feeling comes through naturally in the subtle skills of the writing, acting and directing, all of which come together to deliver the best movie of the year: a movie that has an understated, powerful tone that takes the efforts of many current films reaching for profundity and completely destroys them.
Movie Review: Catalina Sandino Moreno shines
Summary: 5 Stars
A film by Joshua Marston
Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno) de-thorns roses at a flower plantation in a small Colombian town. She recently learned that she is pregnant by her boyfriend whom she does not love nor does he love her. After being poorly treated by her employer, Maria quits her job and needs to find work. Maria helps to support her family, which includes her sister and nephew. Her sister doesn't work. The only job options are to return to the flower plantation or travel many miles away to get work in a city. She meets a young man named Franklin (John Alex Toro) who suggests another option: Maria could work as a mule.
A mule is the person who transports drugs from Colombia to America. In the case of the mules in "Maria Full of Grace", the mules swallow 60 or more pellets filled with heroin and transport the drugs inside of the mule. There is still great risk: the mule can still be caught by customs and submit to an X-Ray which will reveal the pellets; a pellet can break open inside the mule, essentially sentencing the person to death; or the mule can lose a pellet by using the bathroom. Losing a pellet can result in horrible consequences for the family of the mule, as the drug lord threatened Maria and her family. American may be the Land of Opportunity, but "Maria Full of Grace" shows why a Colombian girl with no criminal leanings would choose to enter this life. The opportunities are simply not there in Colombia. A mule could buy a house for her family with just one paycheck.
This film does not shy away from graphically showing us what can happen to those who traffic drugs across the border. We see every possible consequence to being a mule, from the good to the horribly bad. While Joshua Marston does not hand us a moral judgment on Maria, I don't see that there is any way that he is giving any sort of approval to the life of a mule, either. I just know that those characters which chose to continue in that life are not going to have an easy or very long life. Sooner or later time and reality will catch up. The mule is a beast or burden and will not long live a life of luxury.
Catalina Sandino Moreno did a fantastic job as Maria. It is difficult to believe that this was only her first role in a movie (much like Bryce Dallas Howard in "The Village", only this movie is actually good). Moreno is so self assured in "Maria Full of Grace", but also frightened or unsure when circumstances call for it. We get why a basically moral young woman would make the decision she did. For Maria being a mule is not entering a life of crime, but rather an opportunity in a land of no opportunities. Moreno truly is the star of this movie and I would love to see her nominated for this performance.
"Maria Full of Grace" is one of the year's best films and it is moving, heartbreaking, and even uplifting. Second time director Joshua Marston looks to have a very good future ahead of him if he can keep making movies as good as "Maria Full of Grace". The story and the performances really make this foreign language movie shine. Grade: A
-Joe Sherry
Movie Review: Gritty and spectacular
Summary: 5 Stars
Maria Full of Grace is a gripping drama about the decisions we make and the hell we put ourselves through to provide for those we love. First-time writer-director Joshua Marston has crafted a brutally realistic look inside the business of drug mules in such a way that is at times alternately heart-breaking, playful, and gut-wrenching, but always powerful.
Catalina Sandino Moreno plays Maria, a seventeen-year-old girl who works for a Colombian flower distributor, dethorning roses and getting paid very little for a lot of hard work. She works this job to provide for her family, which includes a mother, a grandmother, a sister, and the sister's baby. Maria is often called upon to pay for things for the baby, such as medicine and food, and has come to a point where she is torn between wanting to help and wanting her sister to help herself. Fed up with the mistreatment from her job, she quits, and she also finds out that she is pregnant, but doesn't love her boyfriend Juan (Wilson Guerrero) enough to marry him, and he feels about the same as her.
Maria and her best friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) meet a young man named Franklin (John Alex Toro), and when Maria lets him know that she is trying to find a new job, he offers her an opportunity as a drug mule. He says it's easy work and it pays out big time, so Maria, desperate for the money, agrees to it. All she has to do, she learns, is swallow 62 pellets and fly on a plane to New York, where she will then excrete and deliver them. She is warned that if even one of the pellets bursts, she will die of an overdose. Also going along for the trip are several other girls, including Lucy (Guilied Lopez), who wishes to see her sister in New York, but can't bring herself to go to her apartment, and Blanca, who wants to be just like Maria. When an unexpected tragedy occurs, Maria must run from the drug dealers and find refuge elsewhere, but she must tell a slew of lies along the way.
This film is shot in the gritty style employed by such filmmakers as Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu: the colors are slightly washed out, and the camera is handheld, its shaking giving the proceedings a realistic, documentary-type feel. All of the performances are totally involving, especially Catalina Sandino Moreno, in her first film role, for which she was nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress. She gives Maria an sense of innocence, but not of flawlessness, as she does not always make the right decisions, but her intentions are always well meaning.
The religious parallels are quite obvious to the astute viewer, beginning with the film's title and promotional artwork, which depicts Maria receiving a drug pellet much like holy communion. We've got the name: Maria, otherwise known as Mary; she is a young pregnant girl struggling to find a home. However, this Maria is far from perfect, and definitely not a virgin. This is not to say that the religious imagery is crammed down the viewer's throat; in fact, far from it. Everything in this film seems to unfold naturally, and in my opinion, that is the best way to tell a story.
Movie Review: Cruel web of the drug world and one young woman's choice
Summary: 5 Stars
This 2004 Independent film has won all kinds of awards and I can well understand why. It deals with a subject that I've been vaguely aware of and brings it up close and personal. And it does it so well that I felt I was right inside the film, feeling the pressures of a young Columbian woman as she makes her choice to smuggle drugs into the United States.
We first meet Maria in her native land, where she works all day picking roses and preparing them for export. In spite of the beauty of the flowers, it is physical labor with an unfeeling boss who won't even let Maria go to the bathroom when she needs to. Her family needs the few pesos she earns and are upset when she quits her job. But she has another secret. She's pregnant. And her boyfriend is a real loser. She refuses to marry him and leaves her small town to look for work in Bogotá. Immediately she's recruited to be a "mule", swallowing rubber pellets filled with a white powder and then boarding a passenger plane to America. The audience then gets to see exactly what this means. Maria is told not to eat anything for 24 hours. Then she is given some sort of anesthetic to keep her intestines quiet. And then, with grueling realism, we watch as she gags and chokes and eventually swallows 63 of these pellets which look about 2 inches long and an inch or so wide. We also meet her traveling companions, one of which is Lucy, who has made the trip on two different occasions and teaches Maria how to practice swallowing grapes so she learn to do the task. There's also her best friend, Blanca, from the flower factory. The plane ride is a horror. And when she goes to the bathroom and expels a pellet, she has to re-swallow it again.
But that is not the end of the story. Eventually Maria does make it through and is taken to a motel in New Jersey. And her experience with the young men whose job it is to get the pellets after they are expelled is a nightmare. He friend Lucy gets sick, very sick.
Maria and Blanca eventually make their way to Jackson Heights in the Borough of Queens. She has an address of Lucy's sister. Life in America is hard for the sister who is married and pregnant, but she agrees to let Maria and Blanca stay with her. Now Maria gets a little bit of a taste of America. It is very strange to her.
An unknown actress named Catalina Sandino Moreno plays the role of Maria. She is fabulous. And, I understand that in the Berlin Film Festival she tied with Charlize Theron (Monster) for best actress. Everyone in the cast is wonderful though and so is the directing and cinematography. There was tension in every scene and I felt I was right there with her, experiencing the drug world as this cast of characters does. There are no guns or big money displayed in this film. It's only about the little people who are caught in the drug world's web. This is a fine film and the fact that I found myself retching as I watched it, only reinforces its realism.
Highly recommended, but not for anyone with a weak stomach.
Movie Review: Story of Maria, 17-Year-Old Girl in Columbia: Stunning Debut of Catalina Sandrino Moreno
Summary: 5 Stars
Even if you don't know the name of Catalina Sandrino Moreno, you will remember her and her strong acting after watching this stunning drama about "Maria," Columbian girl who becomes a "mule" hired by drug dealers. The film is partly suspense, partly drama, but no matter how you categorize this low budget film, you cannot deny the powerful acting of Catelina Sandrino Moreno who grabs your heart from the beginning to the end.
The film slowly builds up its quiet first half set in Columbia, showing the life of 17-year-old Maria (Catalina Sandrino Moreno) who does not seem very happy living there. We are going to see her problems - about her family, work, and boyfriend -- but at the same time we also watch the social conditions seen from the viewpoint of an ordinary girl.
And you may think no ordinary girl would accept the job of becoming a mule. The film, however, convincingly recreates the atmosphere of the place in which there are very few choices left for the ordinary girls like Maria, and an opportunity of becoming a mule comes as if it is a part-time job like babysitting. The guy who offers her a job of delivering something to someone in New Jersey does not look so bad, speaking like her own grandfather. But by the time we see Maria's decision, we realize the strong undercurrent that pushes girls like Maria. She silently and quietly, accepts the job, knowing the dangers of being arrested, or death.
One of the most amazing things about the film is that we come to share the values of Maria while we know that what she does is morally wrong. Of course she knows it is wrong, but she knows (or she thinks she knows) it is the only way left for her. But after the suspenseful travel to New York and the horrible accident she encounters there, Maria is no longer what she was. And her next step should be a more independent one.
[HARROWING DETAILS] You heard the stories of mules bring illegal substances into the countries like America by swallowing them. The film director Joshua Marston, it is reported, has interviewed the women who recounted their own experiences as mules, and the details of the business-like routine of the training to be one are one of the most realistic and harrowing experiences I have ever seen. Not that it is violent. It is painful to see because it is done as if it is nothing.
But the most impressive is the energetic performance of Catalina Sandrino Moreno, who realized a realistic and credible portrait of an ordinary woman in Maria, which defies our easy categorizing of the good and the evil. She could be both good and bad, or strong and weak at the same time, and her powerful acting gives a human's face to the social concern in which humans are often treated as figures or ciphers. Among many merits of the film, the last is the most difficult one to achieve, and for that reason alone, the film and Catalina Sandrino Moreno should be praised..