Maria Full of Grace

Year: 2004 Rating: R Overall Evaluation: 6.0 Significance Suppositions Story Style 6.0 / 10 9.0 / 10 6.0 / 10 6.0 / 10 Click HERE for evaluation criteria.

Style

Rated R for drug content and language. The drug content was minimal (it only shows drugs, not drug use). The language was strong - and since this was in subtitles it was not really always necessary and often did not add any appreciable value to the film.

Story

The rather ostentatious title of this movie says very little about its content - although the picture on the front is quite provocative (the white thing is not a Eucharist wafer, it is a "pellet" of heroine). The heroine (no pun intended) of the story is Maria, a girl from Columbia who is trying to have a real life despite familial and social pressures. Unwed Maria discovers that she is pregnant, quits her menial job in a flower factory, and decides to become a "mule" for a local drug dealer. A mule's job is to swallow 60-80 pellets of heroine, fly to the USA with them in their stomachs, and deliver them to drug dealers in New York (yes, the delivery works about like you'd guess). Provided they do not get arrested or die from complications, mules make enough to buy a small house back in Columbia.

[SPOILER WARNING!]

Maria runs into problems when her accomplice dies while trying to get the pellets out of her system. Maria panics and runs out on the dealers (a sure fire way to get your family back home in major trouble). She ends up at the accomplice's sister's house. Maria does not tell her sister what is happening but she finds out eventually. Maria then gives the drugs to the dealers and gets paid enough to help out the sister and get home. At the airport she decides to remain and raise her baby in America.

Suppositions

This film is difficult to watch in some respects - while never really showing any gore you get pretty much the full effect of what life as a mule consists of. Nothing terribly hard to believe, which is sad.

Significance

The climactic moment when Maria makes her decision about going home is rather non-climactic. The character arc shows Maria to be a basically selfish and lazy person who is willing to commit immoral acts in order to get ahead who "learns her lesson" when she blows it. I suppose that her decision to stay for the baby marks a turning point from her previous carelessness, and that's fine, but it seems a little too minimal of a redemption considering what it took to get her there.