Home > Drama >

Maria Full of Grace

Watch Now

Maria Full of Grace (2004)

January. 18,2004
|
7.4
|
R
| Drama Thriller Crime
Watch Now

A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.

...

Watch Trailer

Cast

Similar titles

Reviews

Lawbolisted
2004/01/18

Powerful

More
Smartorhypo
2004/01/19

Highly Overrated But Still Good

More
BoardChiri
2004/01/20

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

More
Tayloriona
2004/01/21

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

More
Python Hyena
2004/01/22

Maria Full of Grace (2004): Dir: Joshua Marston / Cast: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Yenny Paola Vega, Guilied Lopez, Patricia Rae, John Alex Toro: Powerful and provocative film about taking life for granted. Catalina Sandino Moreno plays teenage Maria who quits her job of preparing roses for bouquets when her pregnancy affects constant job irritations. Her mother is constantly borrowing her money and her boyfriend is irresponsible so she accepts an offer to transport drugs to New York. She must swallow pellet size packages of cocaine and make the trip with two other girls, one of whom meets a dire conclusion that has Maria rethinking her decision. Director Joshua Marston gives full view of drug trafficking sparing no suspense in the process. The message is hard hitting and ugly in how those without financial means and no immediate alternatives, are lured into this lifestyle of crime and destruction. Moreno is brilliant as Maria who takes the ultimate risk, sees its ugliness, then yearns for something more. Great supporting cast including Yenny Paola Vega as her best friend Blanca as well as Guilied Lopez and Patricia Rae. The content is disturbing but counters this by being a well crafted independent film with a talking fish to boot. Themes address foolish risks while ignoring the grace freely given within everything we take for granted. Score: 8 / 10

More
fernanda-castro98
2004/01/23

caring drugs and a baby, not consuming either...I saw the movie "María Full of Grace", and this is my opinion about the movie. It is a film which creates a lot of suspense, where you don't know what might go wrong in the dangerous journey as a drug mule in New York. There are so many details that have to be so closely calculated in order for her to return home safely, that you don't know what is going to happen even the next couple of seconds. Things can change so drastically so fast but some are still predictable. This movie is about a 17 year old pregnant girl from Colombia. Her name is María and she starts working in the flower business and ends up as a drug mule along with other young girls from the same area. She needs money to take care of her family, which is composed of her mother, her grandmother, her sister, her nephew, and now her future new born. With the money of the flower job, she could contribute to the house, but she wouldn't accept how her boss treated her, so she quit, and then needed a job desperately. She meets a guy who presents her to a guy who could help her, and takes her to a dealer who hires drug mules to transport cocaine from Colombia to New York. She decides to take the risk because she needed the money. In this journey, María travels with her best friend, and with Lucy who both are working the same route as drug mules. Lucy gets sick and they panic so they escape and that is when the drama actually starts. In my opinion the main characters had kind of an awkward character, but maybe this was done on purpose by the director. If this was a strategy, then in my opinion it wasn't very effective because, it didn't help me like the character, I didn't feel that I was in the movie, unlike other movies I have seen. Other than that I think that they did a pretty good job. Except for Lucy's sister, her character just didn't match. María's best friend evoked a feeling of anger on me, because of the fact that she was just so stupid, and just didn't think right, but this I'm sure that was done on purpose. María's family evoke the correct feelings, of not approving what María has done. They are very controlling, and expect a lot from her, which kind of explain the fact why she wanted to do something of her own choice for once. María is aggressive which kind of makes me want to punch her in more than one scene, same with her friend but because she is just so stupid. In the scene where the friend pulls out all the drugs in front of Don Fernando, I didn't like it because she was just too stupid to be true. Also when they ask the dealers for their money, when they should just be glad to be alive. Those are the two scenes that I hated the most because they are too unreal, someone just cant be that stupid. I also didn't like the fact that María hid Lucy's death from her sister and still had the nerve to go and live with her, and lie to her to her face. I liked the scene when the dealers in New York and taking out Lucy;s body, and the other drug mules don't know what happened to her. This part makes more believable, the fact that they are transporting drugs to other countries. It shows the watchers, how dangerous it really is. It also does a good job at showing the risks that job comes with, by showing Lucy's death, and getting the other woman caught. I also liked how they turned around the story when María was almost caught but saved herself because she was pregnant, they make the plot twist seem gentle and more believable. The ending of the movie is unexpected, and I kind of liked that, because most of the movie is pretty predictable. Since the beginning that you get to know how stupid this teenagers are, you know that they are going to do more than a couple stupid things thought the movie, and most of them you can figure them out several minutes before they happen in the movie. For example the fact that the airport guards where going to detain her, was super obvious, and also when they escape the dealers, you kind of figure out where they are headed. The message that mainly popped out to me from the movie is to get to understand the situations of others before judging. Here we get to see how hard life was being on María, and you kind of cut her some slack on her decision. I still think that her decision was kind of irrational and stupid, but the whole story gets more to me than before. It also shows all the risks of this job and all the precautions they have to take. It shows that there are other options, and that most people and not at gunpoint to go down that road, they still have other choices but they don't want to work as hard for them, and this is what ends up getting them into trouble. In my opinion I think this movie is not for kids, I would rate it a PG-13, because it doesn't have anything inappropriate, but it is a heavy movie with a heavy theme. I would recommend this movie to people who are fascinated by current issues and situations in the world, or people that want to make earth a better place by helping. Drug mule are a really big problem and most of this girls, if they had more access to opportunities, they wouldn't feel that obligated to go down the drug dealing road.

More
Gabriel Jimenez
2004/01/24

I just saw the movie "Maria Full of Grace" on my film appreciation class. I would like to make a critic about this movie. This is a Colombian movie that was released in 2004. This is a crime / drama movie that was directed and written by Joshua Marston. This movie is about a 17 year old Colombian girl named Maria Alvarez. She lives in a lower class town in the suburbs of Bogota, which is the capital of Colombia. Maria and her family don't have much money and they have to maintain themselves. She struggles with her work and gets fired, leaving her family with more limited resources in life. She has trouble finding a new job and that makes her accept a job as a drug mule. She then swallows pellets (62) full with drugs and she goes to New York to complete the deal. In New York she encounters some problems. After giving the pellets to the drug dealers in New York, she noticed that they killed her friend the other mule Lucy Diaz. After knowing this she grabs the drug pellets and goes with her friend Blanca to a safer place leaving the drug dealers without the drugs. The main characters in this movie are Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino), Blanca her friend (Yenny Paola Vega), Lucy Diaz the other mule (Guilied Lopez), Carla Diaz (Patricia Rae), and Javier (Jaime Gomez) who is the guy sending the drugs to New York. I think that Catalina Sandino who played the character of Maria Alvarez in the movie did a very good job. In scenes of stress, like the one in the airport, she knew how to act naturally and not exaggerate as much as other actors in the movie. Maria Alvarez friend Blanca, who the character is played by the actress Yenny Paola Vega, is a character created so that the audience can like in some way hate this character for much of the things she did in the movie. What she does in the movie when she took the pellets of drugs in front of the man in the desk makes the audience want to "kill" her because of what she has done. I think that Patricia Rae, who plays the character of Carla Diaz, didn't do a very good job in the movie. In scenes when she cries it doesn't look real at all, it's like if she was faking the crying. For the rest of the actors and actresses, I think everyone did a great job in the movie. There were some scenes in the movie that I really liked like the one in the airport when they take Maria Alvarez into custody. This scene created a lot of suspense in the movie and I think this is a quality that the audience likes. Another very interesting scene that I liked was when Maria Alvarez has a meeting with Javier; he is the supplier of drugs that are sent to New York. In the meeting Javier seems like a nice man, but you know he is not because of what he does, a drug dealer. I don't like when she goes to her house at the beginning of the movie and she has a little fight with her sister. That scene has a lot of symbols like Maria wearing a red shirt makes her like if she was becoming a rebel, its symbolizing that. I still don't like that scene because the sister thinks that Maria should be the one giving the family money and not her. The sister should help. After seeing this movie the first thing I learned was that sometimes you need to take risks in life so you can survive. Maria Alvarez has to take the risk of becoming a mule to help her family economically and also now that she is pregnant and that she is going to have a baby and she will need to take care of him. These situations in third world countries are very common. Many people have to take risks to survive and they may even fail. Another lesson that this movie thought me is that Latin American movies can be good and even better that some Hollywood movies. I think people will learn from this movie the same thing that I did; to take risks may be the only way to get out of your problems or in this case economic problems. I think that all type of people can enjoy this movie. I would recommend this movie to people that are 13 years old or above. I would recommend this movie to this kind of people because I think that being 13 or above you have the capability of analyzing the movie and at this age you already know about drugs, what they are, and what they're for. If a person under 13 sees this movie I think that they won't understand it and at some point they would want to stop watching it because they could get bored. I would rate this movie as a PG-13 movie. At the end I think this movie can show us a reality of the third world problems that we don't see every day, and I would like people to see this movie so that they can be aware of these problems. I think this movie is good in many ways. RATING: I would like to give this movie a 4 out of 5 because I think it really has a meaning that is important for us to consider. Also in the artistic aspects it has great camera shots and angles and it has a great cast.

More
paola_c
2004/01/25

Some people are unaware of the process of drug trafficking going on around the world. This job might look simple and easy, but it is actually a lot more risky than one might think it is. This situation is clearly shown throughout the movie "Maria Full of Grace," by Joshua Marston. This film specifically exemplifies the trafficking of drugs inside the poor neighborhoods of Colombia. Born and raised in the poor slums of Colombia, Maria Álvarez (Catalina Sandino), takes a big step towards moving away from her current situation. Sick and tired of living the way she does, she decides to step out of her comfort zone and embarks in a risky journey for the sake of her future. With only seventeen, María quits her job at stripping thorns from flowers at a rose plantation once she realizes this job is not going to sustain her and her unborn child. That is when she gets involved as a drug mule. Definitely, nothing like a typical teenage girl.First, while watching this movie, it is important to put oneself on the shoes of a person born and raised in this environment. That is why, it may be debatable whether Maria's choice on joining this precarious business was the best option for her. Obviously, for someone like her, drug trafficking provides much more income than a safer haven that might have given her way more less. Considering the fact that the character, not only quit her only job, and lived in a cramped place, but she also became pregnant at the time, being in her shoes, it was a desperate moment for money.Evidently, the title of the movie itself is ironic. Maria Full of Grace is not actually full of grace, but full of fallacy. However, if analyzed from a different perspective the meaning of the title can also be considered as a symbol. Even though drugs are not seen as graceful, it is grace for Maria. Being a mule provides her with enough money to even buy a real house for her family, which means that this amount of money will be what she will use to provide for her baby. The job she joins is definitely an open door of salvation, considering her conditions. That is why, she is a heroine for her future."Maria Full of Grace" is a valuable movie to watch because it demonstrates the struggles of a young girl weaving into a dangerous business in order to survive. This movie was well done mainly because of the cast chosen. The film started as an indie production with a low budget. Even Catalina Sandino (Maria Álvarez) started her debut as a movie star with this film. Nevertheless, she portrayed natural emotions that appropriately fitted the movie to which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress. Also, the camera movements and shakiness gives for instance a feeling of verisimilitude. This technique creates a major impact on the audience by making them believe that the events on the movie are real, which helps transmit the extents that "Marias" would go for their sake. In general, the drug trafficking business portrayed was ingeniously interpreted. To finish off, this movie is not subjected to an specific audience because it demonstrates a world-wide problem that many have seen, heard, and even gotten involved with. Clearly, the theme of this movie is drug trafficking. With this film, the audience is able to get inside the roots of this smuggling system and see the thin ice in which the people involved walk on. The character Maria shows the bravery needed to overcome any fears and fight to strife to survive.

More