 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
| Maria, Full of Grace
Directed By: Joshua Marston Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
|
|
| A bright, spirited 17-year old, Maria Alvarez, lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia and works stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation. The offer of a lucrative job involving travel--in fact, becoming a drug "mule"--changes the course of her life. Far from the uneventful trip she is promised, Maria is transported into the risky and ruthless world of international drug trafficking. Her mission becomes one of determination and survival and she finally emerges with the grace that will carry her forward into a new life. [TRAILER] Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is full of grace in the sense that she sees the world for what it really is. She sees the hopeless state of her life, her family, and her culture, and realizes that there is little hope of becoming more than she was born as. Her only distraction is that of boys, and even that becomes a curse when she finds that she is pregnant. She is presented with a choice: For enough money to buy a house and rise above her society’s poverty, all she has to do is serve as a mule, swallowing sixty small packets of cocaine and transporting them in her stomach through American customs into the United States. For drug dealers, she is the safest means of trafficking their product, although the failure rate can be quite high. If one of the packets leaks, the carrier is killed and all sixty will end up in a morgue instead of the hands of American dealers ready to dispense the shipment to American users. “Maria, Full of Grace” is a realistic, low-key exploration of this process and its aftermath. It explores just who this person is, what could possibly bring her to risk everything for a few tiny packets of a controlled substance, and what it’s like to actually go through with the plan. It does not celebrate, nor does it criticize, but rather watches in passive recognition of the devastatingly dangerous act that this is. The memorable, intense scene pictured on the movie’s posters is one in which Maria must swallow the large packets of cocaine, somehow preventing herself from gagging on these large pellets which must make their way down her throat. Seeing her grimace and looking into her watering eyes, we believe the pain and we believe the sacrifice. And this connection only deepens on the airplane to America, as she sits with sixty small bombs in her stomach that she hopes will not explode. Most remarkable about “Maria, Full of Grace” is its no-frill approach. There are no special effects here, nor camera tricks, melodramatic speeches or contrived plot twists. This movie adopts a rigid look and allows the story and its characters to speak for themselves. Note the movie’s complete lack of a musical score. In a medium that so often relies on music to dictate emotions, “Maria Full of Grace” refuses to use music as a crutch, and is better for it. Thanks to this hands-off approach, writer and director Joshua Marston gives the material a dose of reality that is missing from other great films about drugs and addicts. In “Leaving Las Vegas,” Nicolas Cage’s self-destructive alcoholic is a character at the extreme end of the spectrum. In “Requiem For A Dream,” the film’s drug users are depicted as tragic figures who are consumed by substances they underestimated. But in “Maria, Full of Grace” there is a respect for the central character that prevents us from detaching from her. Maria is not an extreme or tragic figure, but a normal woman who realizes that de-thorning roses will not take her anyplace and who refuses to accept failure and misery as the only possible option. She is sympathetic by her very nature, and through both Marston’s and Moreno’s refusal to play up her pain or struggles, we care even more about how her believable tale will end. This really could be the story of anyone in a desperate situation. Heck, it could even be about an American fast food employee who finally decides that, whatever the cost, she demands more from her life. The difference between Maria and that burger flipper is that she must risk her life sixty times over to break the cycle. Check out Reviews, Commentary, and More at Zertinet.com |
LINKS
TO REVIEWS |
| Movies
@ Zertinet | Oscars @ Zertinet
| Main Site Best Viewed
at 800 X 600 or greater |
|
