Movies about drugs may not be new, but we have come a long way since over-the-top explorations like The Trip and even further past propagandistic films like Reefer Madness! More recently, films like Traffic seek to give drug use and the business of drugs a more gritty realism. Maria Full of Grace, written and directed by newcomer Joshua Marston, siphons that realism down to a humanistic microcosm of the drug world.

The film stars Catalina Sandino Moreno as the willful Maria. She works long days at a flower plantation in Colombia, trimming the thorns from long-stem roses that will eventually be shipped overseas (probably to American customers who haven't the faintest idea where they come from). Her fingertips are raw and bandaged, but this is how she makes her living, and she gets the job done. She lives with her mother, grandmother, sister, and nephew in home no larger than some New York City apartments, and her duty to her family, as is true with many traditional Latin American families, supercedes all others. She contributes to the household as part of a team but grows increasingly frustrated that her sister does not.

Her boyfriend Juan is a something of a loser"”harmless, but a loser nonetheless. Marston sets up their relationship very nicely in the beginning of the film. As they kiss and hold one another, leaning against the side of a house, Juan pleads to go to Maria's home so they can make love. Maria doesn't want to go, and tries instead to lure Juan to the roof of the structure they are leaning against. He watches as she climbs up with relative ease, but when she tells him it is his turn, he will not do it. He won't climb, but Maria refuses to come back down, and there is no sadness when Juan walks away from her. He is frightened of what she is capable of, and he fears he is not capable of half as much. We suspect that he probably is not.

Maria wants him to join her on the roof so she can tell him that she is pregnant with his child. At work, she must negotiate morning sickness with her boss's impatience, and she winds up becoming sick on her pile of roses because her boss will not allow her a bathroom break. When he says that he wants her to clean the roses off, even though they are ruined and can no longer be used, Maria quits her job.

When she later does confess to Juan that she is pregnant, Juan immediately flips into the traditional Latin masculine role, and this is exactly what it feels like"”a role, a pose. He wants to marry her

and have her move into his already overcrowded home. When she expresses what a bad idea she thinks this is, that she thinks they would be better off living in her home, he is outraged at the idea of a man going to live in his wife's house. He claims he is "stepping up to this" situation, but Maria doesn't want him stepping up to it just to inflate his own masculinity. She asks, "Do you love me," and we sense that this is not akin to some post-coital female pondering. Maria doesn't love Juan and only wants to confirm that this is mutual.

Feeling pressure from her family and the weight of responsibility growing in her womb, Maria sets off for the big city to hopefully find some office work. Instead, she discovers an option much more lucrative: become a mule, trafficking drugs from Colombia to New York City. After some initial discussions and planning, Maria swallows over 60 pellets packed with heroin and boards a flight for the United States. Her best friend Blanca has also made the decision to become a mule and is on the same flight with Maria and Lucy, a more experienced mule (she's done this twice before), all three working for the same man. When they arrive in the States, one mule disconnected from this story is carted away in handcuffs. Maria is suspected of trafficking, but because she is pregnant she cannot be x-rayed and is released.

The mules are herded into a van and taken to a hotel room where they must stay until they have expelled every pellet. Lucy is ill"”one of the pellets has obviously ruptured inside her"”and her condition quickly worsens. Maria wakes in the morning to see the American drug workers carrying Lucy's corpse out of the room. Finding the bathroom smeared with blood, she collects the pellets and flees with the hesitant Blanca, hoping to find Lucy's sister (whose identity and Jackson Heights address serve as their cover for coming to the States) and resolve the whole matter somehow. Maria does eventually find her own sort of resolution, and I will not divulge the plot in its entirety.

As she wanders Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught of this Queens neighborhood, Maria spots a man sitting in front of a bodega, unwrapping and fussing with long-stem roses, and this nearly takes our breath away. Joshua Marston never belabors any point he is trying to make in this film, and this is exactly why the film is so effective. He deals with the subject matter honestly and frankly and still manages to avoid the tendency of films like this to use in-your-face tactics. Subtlety is the name

of his game. Where another film may have romanticized Maria's life, Maria Full of Grace does not. Ms. Moreno's performance is amazing in its understated honesty, and this strengthens Marston's brilliant script. The character that Moreno embodies is so mature that we are almost shocked when she reveals early on that she is only seventeen. Maria doesn't ask for sympathy, and she doesn't want it, whether from the audience or anyone else. Maria makes choices; she must live with them, and ultimately so must we.

Movie Grade: A+

Synopsis: Maria, a young pregnant girl from Colombia, decides that becoming a drug mule because of the large sum of money it will yield, but she must live with the consequences.