"Based on 1,000 true stories."

Maria Full of Grace (2004): 6/10

Poster (c) HBO Films/Fine Line Features

Any movie that centers its plot around drugs is bound to be hard to sit through. Requiem for a Dream certainly was one of the most depressing movies ever created, The Salton Sea was hard to sit through because it was so bad, and I'm sure Spun isn't an easy experience, either. The same goes for Maria Full of Grace. Supposedly "based on 1,000 true stories", and featuring a startling debut for Catalina Sandino Moreno, it's very occasionally emotionally gripping, but the sum of its parts is the same as it's whole, and the equation doesn't add up to that much.

Maria (Moreno) is a bored, stubborn seventeen year old Colombian girl who quits her job at a flower-packing factory because her boss doesn't let her go to the bathroom. For a job, she becomes a drug mule to carry heroin across the border to New York. Obviously, it isn't easy, as she has to swallow sixty three pellets of heroin and then not get caught. Also, she's pregnant from Juan (Wilson Gurrero).

Is Maria Full of Grace a depressing movie? Sure, how could a movie with this subject matter not be depressing? From seeing Maria in her roots in her depressing town to her career options and all, and then seeing her get thrown into a disgusting trade. Writer/director Joshua Marston gives us development of Maria and partially her friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega), enough to care about them as they get going on their illegal adventures. Neither of them are really likeable characters, especially Blanca, but we care about them just enough to go with them.

But on the other hand, Maria's biggest fault is in the pomposity of the screenplay and directing. The film thinks that the audience will be so engrossed in Maria's plight that we won't be able to go over the faults. The movie thinks that it's completely depressing, something to ruin our lives, a la Requiem for a Dream. That's simply not the case, at least halfway through. It has depressing tones to it, but it's not a complete downer. And the pretentiousness is full of flaws. The characters introduced in the first half of the film (obviously) don't come back later, leaving all of them in the dust. The film's "two-thirds twist" seems a bit rash and foolish for the character of Maria, and Blanca's character just annoyed me. Marston's choice of using handheld cameras works well (good cinematography here, unlike other recent choices of handhelds), but tries to distract us yet again from seeing below the surface.

Moreno does a great job as the complex Maria, although at times her performance was a bit forced. Everyone else does some good phoned-in performances. But Moreno stands out in a one-note movie, a mediocre one that could have done what it set out to do, but eventually become too engrossed with itself to recognize, or fix, its flaws.

Rated R for drug content and language.

Review Date: September 11, 2004