Maria Full of Grace

Starring:Catalina Sandino Moreno, Virgina Ariza, Yenny Paola Vega, Rodrigo SÃ¡nchez Borhorquez, Charles Albert PatiÃ±o, Wilson Guerrero, Johanna Andrea Mora, Fabricio Suarez, Mateo Suarez, Evangelina Morales, Juana Guarderas, John Ãlex Toro, Jaime Osorio GÃ³mez, Guilied Lopez, Victor Macias, Hugo Ferro, Ana Maria Acosta, Ada Vergara De Solano, Maria Consuelo Perez, Ed Trucco
Director: Joshua Marston
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

When a movie can blend passionate social concern with good old-fashioned suspense, it must be doing something right. Maria Full of Grace scores high on both counts. Maria is a Colombian teenager who, for a large paycheck, agrees to be a mule for drug-runners: she has to swallow dozens of thumb-sized capsules of heroin and smuggle them into New York. This debilitating process is painstakingly described, and of course not everything goes as planned when Maria and her fellow mules land in America. Director Joshua Marston is working on a low budget, which explains the film's narrow, single-minded focus--but this may be a strength, not a weakness. The trump card is the lead performance of Catalina Sandrino Moreno, who won awards at the Seattle and Newport Film Festivals. Her empathetic face carries us along on Maria's journey, and humanizes a problem that is too easily relegated to a headline. --Robert Horton

Description

(Drama) Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino), a bright, spirited 17-year old, lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia. Desperate to leave her job stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation, Maria accepts a lucrative offer to transport packets of heroin-which she must swallow-to the United States. The ruthless world of international drug trafficking proves to be more than Maria bargained for as she becomes ultimately entangled with both drug cartels and immigration officials. The dramatic thriller builds toward a conclusion so powerful and revealing it could only be based on a thousand true stories.

Customer Reviews:

Drug Smuggling.......2007-05-07

This movie has tremendous social impact and will stay with you long after you have watched it. It is hard to believe it is fictional because you know as you are watching it that this truly goes on, on a daily basis, and it is difficult to turn away. While it may not be easy to identify with the title character, it is very easy to understand her motivations and how it could happen. It is slow but intense and very interesting. Years after seeing the movie, I still think about it and remember it well. It's an important movie and well worth seeing. If you're going to take the time to watch, don't watch the dubbed version but see the film as the filmmaker would want you to see it, in it's original language.

Great Spanish independent suspense drama ......................2007-05-03

I love and own this film. It's a Spanish independent suspense drama.
"Maria Full of Grace" is about a young girl growing up in Columbia
with her family barely making ends meet. Once she is fired from
a low paying job she becomes even more desperate.

Maria reluctantly agrees to smuggle heroin inserted in latex capsules to destinations in the US. She struggles morally and physically with the danger of swallowing dozens of these capsules at once in order to make much needed money.

The film continues when Maria and other poor, reluctant desperate girls are trapped in the world of illegal drug trafficking. They quickly learn the drugs are the only thing that matter to their employer.

I viewed the movie with the help of subtitles (my Spanish is awful), don't let this stop you.
"Maria Full of Grace" is a great film, that's touching
and suspenseful with social concerns.

Maria Full of Something Alright.......2007-04-08

"Maria Full of Grace" by Joshua Marston certainly has a story to tell. The fault with the movie is that the powerful tale could be told better and more powerfully. The characters could have been brought to life more aptly by more apt actors. The lead actress Catalin Sandino Moreno is no doubt a beautiful young woman who portrays subtle emotions and feelings in her angelic face but her supporting cast doesn't really show up to the dance and the script writing is lacking.

What I believe the film to be about is bringing to light a certain level of social awareness of the immigrant story. Even if the immigrant story is born out of desperation, a desperation so powerful as to cause young sub-20 year old people to swallow enough drugs to feed a habit the size of Utah. This film brings to light the story of mules--humans trafficking drugs within their bodies awaiting to poop them out on American soil so the drug cartels can continue to thrive. It is no doubt a story that needs to be told and an awareness that needs to come to the good common folk of the US of A. We are supposed to be the melting pot are we not? We were all traced back to immigrants, yes?

The actress that plays Maria's friend, Blanca turns in one of the more 1-dimensional stone-faced performances seen in quite a while. Of the other mules that accompany Maria and Blanca to New York...well the story writing really doesn't support getting to know them. We know little to nothing about any of the characters outside of Maria and it is a flaw. A flaw leaving you thinking this movie and this story could have really been something.

If you are interested in the dynamics of the drug trade, Colombia's civil war plight, policies behind the war on drugs, or humanistic tales of immigrants, I'd say go ahead and watch this flick. If you are looking to view some of the greatest movies around year by year and are peeking at those that came out in 2003, I'd say go elsewhere. The reviews and recommendations suffer from critics automatically giving higher ratings to foreign films. It's foreign, it's different, it's in a different language we don't understand told by people we don't know, it must be unique and illuminating. Well I'd say that's an old mule's tale and in need of some laxatives. ...mmw

A "job" that can kill.......2007-03-04

The desperately poor women who become carriers of drugs--inside their stomachs, no less--risk a terrible death but are willing to do so for the chance to live in the U.S. Not a propaganda piece, but a hard, cold look at the truth.

Disappointed.......2007-01-31

Actually, I am very disappointed that I did not have an opportunity to even watch this movie because I was sent a DVD for the US regional code instead of the Australian regional code and I could not watch it. I am, hopefully, getting a replacement from yourselves and then return the wrong one. This means extra international postage costs to me, which I am not hapy with either.

Maria Llena Eres De Gracia (Maria Full Of Grace)[NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America]

Average customer rating:

Maria Llena Eres De Gracia (Maria Full Of Grace)[NTSC/REGION 1 & 4 DVD. Import-Latin America]
Director: Joshua Marston
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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