bbewnylorac As the Colombian drug mule Maria, Catalina Sandino Mareno perfectly portrays an intelligent but naive and impulsive girl who agrees to swallow pellets of drugs and fly to New York for a drug cartel. Joshua Marston's directing, the script and the actors' performances have such passion and empathy that it puts the audience right in their shoes. Yes, the film says, Maria makes an incredibly stupid choice to risk death or heavy punishment in doing this. To some extent she already knows this, but she soon learns all the very nasty consequences. You can feel her fear, of imminent death or arrest. But the film asks us to ask ourselves, what if you were her - facing lifelong poverty and mind numbing work and responsibility for your entire family in a third world country? There is no hope for advancement in life. Would you do the same? You're a pregnant teenager and you meet someone who will pay you a lot of money and take you to the US where everything (you imagine) will be wonderful. Maria's dominant feeling is choking fear, in many forms. It makes you think about the risks and sense of leaping blindly into the unknown that migrants must experience.

paola_c 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.

maria0298 "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.

luciagp1720 Having recently seen the movie "Maria Full of Grace" I wanted to share my opinion about it. This movie follows the story of a young Colombian teenage girl who in desperate need of money is offered a position as a drug mule. Because she needed the money urgently, she accepts and the movie shows us her journey through this process. Written and directed by American director Joshua Marston, the movie won 35 awards including three from the Berlin International Film Festival, and was nominated for 24 other awards, including the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. It takes place in a rural town in Colombia. 17 year old María Álvarez (Catalina Sandino) lives in a house with her mother, grandmother, sister and her son; all who depend on a fraction of Maria's salary for a living. That is why when Maria tells them that she quit from her job at the flower factory (because of an unjust treatment from her boss) they immediately tell her to return to the factory and beg for her job back. Already having this burden in her life, Maria finds out she is pregnant with the child of her boyfriend Juan, who she ends up breaking up with. Maria stubborn as she is, refused to go back to the factory, and as a consequence went to Bogota in search of a job. On her way, she encounters an acquaintance that offers her a job as a drug mule, which would give her the amount of money she needs in a short time; and because "desperate times call for desperate measures" Maria accepts the offer along with her best friend Blanca. She'll be payed $5000 to take in and carry 62 cocaine pellets to New York. The rest of the movie shows the journey, which Maria (along with the other 3 mules), have to take to deliver the drugs and deal with the various obstacles that come through their way. The overall acting of the movie was great. Carmen Sandino is able to portray her character in an outstanding manner. Through the directing of Marston and her acting she was able to make the viewer believe she was really a teenage girl, a teenager that throughout the movie develops and grows into a woman. One of the things I like about her acting is that she doesn't necessarily asks us, the viewers, to like Maria, but in a way she asks us to understand her. One of the reasons why her acting was so believable is because she worked in a Colombian flower plantation for two weeks, another reason is that she didn't practice swallowing the pellets, since Maria didn't know how to. So, to make it even more believable she tried to swallow them for the first time during the scene. One that does an excellent job is Yenny Vega (Blanca), who through her actions in the movie is able to show the innocence, anxiety and desperation these girls have. Her character was despised by many, because of her attitude, (her nagging, and childlike personality) and her actions, (when she pulls out the bag of pellets in front of Don Fernando). The reason why she acts like this is because she is just a teenager, and that's exactly what the director wants us to understand. That she is scared, and anxious just like any other teenager and person would be in this situation. Guilied López (Lucy Díaz) also does an outstanding job; she is able to expose another reality of drug trafficking. The only but that I have for the acting is Lucy's sister, Patricia Rae (Carmen), she doesn't do a bad job, but she doesn't act the character as realistic as the others do. This movie gives the viewer another perspective from the drug world, not the typical cliché plot about the trafficking. The movie shows the struggle drug mules (specially women) have to go through. One of the main reasons why I liked this movie is because the movie doesn't mainly focus on the drug story, but it focuses more on Maria's life, and because of this the viewer might get emotionally attached to the character. I also liked that it all looks so natural and real. Like Stephen Holden said "what keeps your heart in your throat during the movie is Maria herself. In a performance that feels lived in rather than acted…"—Stephen Holden, The New York Times. One factor that I don't like about the movie is that they show the U.S as a place to achieve the American Dream, where problems will be solved, and many seem to have their lives together; but actually its not that of an ideal place as it is portrayed.The movie covers numerous topics worth discussing; from teenage pregnancy to poverty. Because it covers these topics it leaves various lessons. It teaches us that sometimes we have to face and accept the consequences of our actions, just like Maria is dealing with her pregnancy. It also exposed me a totally different reality than the one we live. It teaches me that sometimes there are situations in which people will do anything for money, even risking their own life and the life of loved ones; and its ironic because many are risking the life of loved ones for them, just like Maria did. I think many teenagers and adults will like this movie. I would recommend it to people who find this subject interesting, and people who like to see different realities and situations; it's a movie for anyone who feels mature enough to take in the story and to be presented with a crude reality. Since this movie has an R rating, kids should not watch this movie, since they might not understand it, as clearly, and there are various scenes, which can be a lot for them to take in. This is a great movie, I give it an 8.5/10.