Maria Full of Grace (2004)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Drug Shots

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Maria Full of Grace on DVD.

A frightened, teenage girl is trapped in a sleazy, New Jersey hotel room with two nasty drug dealers. When her chance comes, she takes it; she runs. In a normal movie, the girl would eventually turn the tables on her pursuers, capturing them or killing them and emerging victorious; but not in Joshua Martson's Maria Full of Grace. In this debut film, Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) loses her job de-thorning roses and becomes a drug mule. To earn her paycheck, she must swallow more than 60 latex-wrapped heroin capsules and travel from Colombia to the US without losing her cool or getting caught. Moreover, if even one of the capsules breaks or dissolves in her system, she will die. NYU educated filmmaker Marston follows in Ken Loach's footsteps, telling hard-luck stories of true-to-life people struggling with the harsh political realities that many of us may not even be aware of. Marston sidesteps all possible genre conventions and avoids allusions to the bigger picture, in which rich, spoiled Americans enjoy the fruits of Maria's labor. Mostly he allows the extraordinary Moreno, who also makes her movie debut here, to carry all the uncertainty, terror and pain on her own young, striking shoulders.

Starring: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Yenny Paola Vega, Giulied Lopez, John Alex Toro
Written by: Joshua Marston
Directed by: Joshua Marston
MPAA Rating: R for drug content and language
Language: Spanish and English with English subtitles
Running Time: 101 minutes
Date: August 20, 2004

This review also appeared in the Las Vegas Weekly.