Maria Full of Grace (2004)

Memorable, crazy movie

Fresh and Exciting

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's amazing to see the performance of Catalina Sandino Moreno here. She's fully committed and her work here is authentic and completely genuine. No artificiality, something which I wish I could say was most common in Hollywood.

I really feel like I "should" like this movie, and to be honest, i probably gave it a better grade then the film itself deserves due to the important topic that it handles, and about which relatively few movies (that aren't documentaries) handle. Yet what a horribly boring movie. The main mistake that this movie made is very typical for "serious" topic movies - making it excruciatingly slow. If you are one of those people who enjoy long, drawn out shots, with no other purpose than to show the characters reaction to something, you might like this film. yet, even at that, i found most long short not to hold that much emotion, acting, etc. secondly as a "typical" mistake, I would say "layering too much drama". You know those movies in which you have one dramatic setting, but since that doesn't seem like enough, they add a very dramatic sub-plot to the character, and then a very dramatic back-story, and then a very dramatic subplot to the subplot? Well, this might just be my heartless opinion, but when something is super over-dramatic, it loses all credibility , authenticity, and interest. Then again, I'm not one to enjoy telenovelas. I could go on, but those are the main points, and I find them to be two main factors that might effect someone linking or disliking it. hope it helps!

After watching the movie "Maria Full of Grace," a spectator encounters various topics worth discussing. This movie deals with topics such as drug trafficking, teenage pregnancies, violence, and Colombia's tough reality. It was developed by Joshua Marston in 2004 and has been awarded various awards including an audience award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. It is a very crude movie, but it shows the real Colombia instead of the touristic version of it. The storyline is very interesting because this is something that could happen to anyone, not just to one person or just to the character in the movie. For all we know, there could be, and probably are, a million Marias out there in the world.The story begins in Bogota, Colombia, where Maria lives in a crowded house with her mother, her grandmother, her sister, and her sister's son. Maria is working in a flower plantation but decides to quit due to her boss's mistreatment. Later on, she finds out that she is carrying a baby and she must find a way to maintain the child. She is then offered a job as a drug mule and in her desperation decides to accept it, which takes her to New York and makes her encounter dangerous drug dealers and a couple of events that mark her life forever. Maria Alvarez is portrayed by Catalina Sandino Moreno, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress. Her character is a 17-year old pregnant Colombian teenager who finds herself stuck in the problems of drug trafficking.Catalina Sandino did a spectacular job as an actress. Her acting comes out naturally and realistic. There is no point in the story where you doubt the credibility of her story. Yenny Paola Vega portrays Blanca, one of Maria's closest friends, who also gets involved in the drug dealing business. Her character is very arrogant and stressful, yet she does a great job at transmitting these emotions. As for Lucy's sister, Carla, the actress, Patricia Rae, did a very mediocre job at playing her character. Everything looks over exaggerated and it doesn't seem natural. She should have kept it more believable because her crying looks forced, her interactions with other characters look unreal and her character becomes totally fake.What I enjoyed most about this movie was the main theme. It becomes really entertaining and engaging to watch a movie with such controversial topics and strong plot line. Watching the life of a drug mule and the difficulties she has to overcome it is impossible to stop paying attention and it is almost impossible to breathe due to the extreme intensity of the movie. Yet, I hated the part where Maria arrives at Carla's house out of the blue and she just stays there. It all seemed so easy and impossible. Also, that Maria decided to ask the drug dealers for their money and after that protest that they should get Lucy's money as well. It seemed illogical that the men would just hand over the money. One second they were fighting and the next they were just handing it over. Doesn't that seem a little out of place? This movie is packed with lessons. The one I consider the most important is that in which they show that people shouldn't take the easy way out of things because even though they may seem like the easy way and the most profitable, in this case, it is not always the best way. Here, the choice she makes is immoral; illegal; dangerous, not only for her but for her baby as well; threatening; and simply wrong. There is no debating that drug trafficking is just wrong. There is a reason for it to be illegal: it is wrong. This lesson could be applied in our own lives, not mattering if we are not mules because many times we take the easy way out of things; we may be in desperate needs and some people say that desperate needs call for desperate measures but I could argue differently. There is always a sane way out of things and a right way because we may not see it but choices are always dangling in the air waiting for us to reach out and just take one, hopefully it will be the right one because there are plenty to chose from.I would totally recommend this movie to anyone above the age of 15. It deals with very strong and crude topics and the storyline is just as strong and crude. Nonetheless, it is for people of many ages because its topic is not one discussed only at one age, it is present in the world everyday and everybody knows about it. It is nothing new that mules are around, carrying drugs inside their bodies to earn money and the topic itself is interesting because you get to see different people's points of view on this controversial topic. The title is also very catchy because Maria isn't actually full of grace, she is full of drugs.My name is Ximena and I study at Lincoln School Costa Rica. I am taking the Film Appreciation class and for an assignment we had to watch and analyze this movie. This is the third movie that I watch out of the Hollywood Movies and I am really impressed due to its excellent outcome.

"Maria Full of Grace", is a Latin American movie directed by Joshua Marston. It tells the story of a 17-year-old Colombian girl who finds herself jobless and is forced to search for a way to keep her family afloat. A film that focuses on a different perspective of life, "Maria Full of Grace" shows how a member of several minority groups (a teenager, a woman, and a Latin American) deals with her circumstances, and how she manages to survive in an often-cruel world.Maria is a pregnant teenage girl who quits her job in a rose plantation when she is mistreated by her employer. Maria and her mother are the only ones that work in the family, so she is pressured to find a profitable job quickly. She is taken to Bogota by a friend, and along the way he tells her about a job as a drug mule. Initially, Maria is not willing to participate in the business, but as her friend describes the possible compensation, she decides to meet the organizer of the trafficking. She meets the man in charge in a bar in Bogota, and he explains what she will have to do; assuring her that it will be a safe, easy and painless job. He gives her a part of the payment ahead and she agrees to come back. Later, she returns to swallow the small bundles of drugs wrapped in latex gloves, boards the plane and leaves for the US. Through her journey, Maria experiences several frightening setbacks. However, she is helped by the people she meets in New York and understands the opportunities that immigrants have in the city. Ultimately, Maria decides to stay in the United States, in order to ensure a brighter future for her unborn child.The characters' portrayals contribute enormously to the story. This is a character-oriented film: Maria is not just a drug mule, another victim of the drug trafficking business. She is a teenage girl who was a family and a life, and she manages to surmount difficulties in a rather composed manner. She is strong-willed and hot-tempered and like every teenager, she is impulsive and unnervingly brave. Actress Catalina Sandino channels the emotions that curse through Maria using different facial expressions and voice tones. Maria's character is believable: whether hated or loved by viewers, it makes us actually wonder about her motivations. The accompanying cast also represents accurately what their characters feel, how they react to adversity and how they have been affected by past experiences. I think one of the most important elements that help an actor accomplish this is his life being connected in some way to the character's life; and this holds true for this film. The actors in the film are Latinos. While their realities may not be exactly the same as their characters', there is a strong connection to stories such as these. As a Latin American girl, I understand how violence, poverty and desperation are connected to every culture, including mine. I should stop and clarify that I am immensely biased. I am a Latina that worships her region's history, culture and people. However, this film was magnificent for me because it showed me a side of Latin America that can't be ignored. The fear and insecurity are as present and real as the beauty and the love that also abound around me. It is a gritty sort of realism that makes this film so attractive, so shocking. It makes the audience feel responsible, because it exposes the point to which some humans are exploited. Thus, I feel that our culture was portrayed well in the movie; from the rural Colombia and the youths during parties, to overwhelming Bogota. I felt identified with what the characters said and did: it was a real Latin American movie, a true portrait of the people we are. I think that the most accomplished scenes were the ones that captured Maria's life: her fight with her sister, her naïve boyfriend, and her talks with her best friend. The biggest lesson I think this movie taught me is that regardless of nationality, class, ethnicity, religion, and political orientation, every human will inevitably have something in common with another human. In every country, immigration is a controversial issue, whether it is Costa Rica or the United States. We have been taught to instinctively fear immigrants or blame immigration as the source of our problems. What this movie really screams out is "Is it anyone's fault to want a better life?" When I finished watching the movie I thought (and still do) that it portrayed Latin America slightly negatively. However, I now understand that one of the major points was not to undermine Latin America, but to make the audience understand what kind of struggle it must be to leave one's own country because of different circumstances. As I have said before, we can all find ourselves in Maria and the rest of the characters. Therefore, I'd recommend this movie to everyone over the age of 15, regardless of the fact that the movie is rated R. The closer we get to the truth, the more we can do to change that truth if we dislike it. We are used to living trapped in prison of comfort; and I call it prison because it not only traps us from doing something radical or different, but it keeps other people away from us: people that need help. Thus, I applaud the director for making a movie that has woken us up and set us free, one by one. Rating: 4.5/5Maria Thompson is a student in sophomore year at Lincoln School in San Jose, Costa Rica. She likes reading and writing. One of her main hobbies is eating, and her favorite food is asparagus. Maria hopes to be involved in politics in the future. Before that though, Maria hopes to learn how to cook.