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"'Grace' Under Pressure"
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| Excess baggage! Catalina Sandino Moreno weighs her options in "Maria Full of Grace" |
If you couldn’t make it to the 2004 Sundance Film Festival this past January, then have no fear! The finest films from the most recent line-up are finally playing at a theater near you, and you won’t have to embrace frigid temperatures, uncomfortable seats or -- worst of all -- stressed-out Hollywood studio executives to see them.
Actually, there’s quite a bit to choose from, starting with Zach Braff’s charming directorial debut “Garden State,” the quirky coming-of-age comedy “Napoleon Dynamite,” the surprisingly touching rock documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster,” and the terrifying deep-sea thriller “Open Water.” But the jewel of the crown by far is “Maria Full of Grace,” a spellbinding and sensational hero’s journey that easily stands out as one of the year’s best movies.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for seventeen-year-old Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno), times are about to become really desperate. She’s the sole source of income for her impoverished Colombian family, but she just quit her menial job at a sweatshop-style flower plantation. She just found out that she’s pregnant, but the father is a complete loser who doesn’t really love her. Then she meets Franklin (Jhon Alex Toro), a handsome stranger who offers her the high-paying, but very dangerous, opportunity to become a “mule” -- a courier who will use her digestive system to smuggle heroin into the United States. Maria reluctantly takes the job, and thus begins a harrowing journey that will test her strength of will to the very core.
Try to imagine life as a mule. First, you have to swallow a number of drug-filled pellets (and depending on your size, that can mean anywhere between 25 to 100 pellets). Then, you have to act like you know what you’re doing when you bypass suspicious customs officials at the airport. If the pellets come out prematurely, then you have to swallow them again (and if one breaks while still inside you, you’re dead). Once you arrive at your destination, you have to take laxatives to pass the pellets through your system. Then, after washing them off yourself, you can go back home and call it a day. Or you can cash in and do it all over again.
The fact that writer-director Joshua Marston depicts this process in such a riveting fashion is an accomplishment in itself, but the fact that he displays so much craft and confidence with his first feature film is truly remarkable. The movie is both fascinating and disturbing at the same time, and Marston shows you just what you need to see while leaving the more disgusting aspects to your imagination. It’s hard not to be repulsed by the process as a whole, but at the same time, it’s so interesting that you simply can’t look away.
At the center of it all is a deeply moving story about an ordinary young woman thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno makes a spectacular film debut and effortlessly carries the movie with an incredible, Oscar-worthy performance. She depicts Maria as a strong, spirited heroine who is forced to make a number of important decisions (not all of them good), and you can’t help but root for her until she reaches the most important crossroads of her life.
It’s easy to compare movies to other movies when writing reviews, but that’s simply not the case here. That’s because “Maria Full of Grace” is unlike anything you will ever see. It’s harrowing and it’s disturbing, but it’s also a deeply engaging and emotionally moving story about the triumph of the human spirit. It’s an unforgettable cinematic experience, and thanks to movies like this, I can’t wait until next summer, when the Sundance Film Festival returns to a theater near me.
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© Scott Mantz - Scott's Movie Reviews
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