
	Where results make sense

Topic: Maria Full of Grace

Related Topics

Heavenly Creatures

Culture of Colombia

Colombia

Cinema of Colombia

Music of Colombia

In the News (Thu 31 Dec 09)

Northern Trust

Marvin Harrison

Peter Chernin

Gary Locke

Match Play

Penelope Cruz

Mickey Rourke

AR Rahman

Danny Boyle

Hugh Jackman

	Maria Full of Grace - Review (María Full of Grace, Maria, llena eres de gracia)
		Of course, unlike the rose, heroin is illegal - but 'María Full of Grace' makes it clear that the workers in both industries are terribly exploited, so that it is easy to empathise with María's decision to gamble everything on the more perilous, but also more lucrative, option.
		With its unobtrusive camerawork and naturalistic settings, 'María Full of Grace' could almost be a journalistic documentary, were it not for the central character of María - impulsive, stubborn, resourceful, proud, determined - who guides viewers through its dramatic events while filling the film with her humanity, flaws and all.
		In her first ever rôle, Catalina Sandino Moreno is simply a revelation, and one can only imagine that she, like the character she plays, has a bright future ahead of her in America.
	www.movie-gazette.com /cinereviews/1248 (634 words)

	Maria Full of Grace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Maria Full of Grace (2004, Spanish title: María Llena Eres de Gracia, lit.
		"Maria, you are full of grace") is a joint Colombian-American film, written and directed by Joshua Marston.
		The title is a reference to the Hail Mary and a reference to what Maria carries in her into the United States.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Maria_Full_of_Grace (293 words)

	calendarlive.com: MOVIE REVIEW - 'Maria Full of Grace'
		Maria has come to the office of the silver-haired Don Javier (Jaime Osorio Gómez) in the hope that he will hire her as a mule, which means swallowing up to 60 thumb-size pellets of heroin to smuggle them into New York on a flight from Bogotá in return for $5,000.
		Maria's community is a one-industry town supported by an immense rose plantation and factory, which exports the flowers on a massive scale.
		It is a measure of Maria's desperation, her total lack of viable alternatives, that she should risk her life — all it takes to cause death is one leaky capsule — and at the same time place herself in the hands of murderously ruthless individuals.
	www.calendarlive.com /movies/reviews/cl-et-maria16jul16,2,5129172.story (758 words)

	Reeling: the Movie Review Show's review of Maria Full of Grace
		Maria’s experience in the big city, especially after having her baby checked with a sonogram, will bring enormous change to the young woman and her future.
		“Maria Full of Grace” is a disturbing movie that puts you right up there with the title character as she tries to brave her way through a dangerous, even deadly, mission that could set her for life.
		During her first plane trip, Maria is unsettled from both the experience of flight and the extreme discomfort caused by the sixty pellets of heroin in her stomach (the mechanics of ingesting and re-ingesting and then eliminating the drugs is gut-churning).
	www.reelingreviews.com /mariafullofgrace.htm (1202 words)

	Maria Full of Grace (2004): Reviews
		It is impossible to sit through Maria Full of Grace and not be affected by the circumstances of the characters.
		In its vitality and finesse, Maria Full of Grace is all of a piece -- and both artistically and spiritually itself full of grace.
		Maria Full of Grace is a remarkable picture, full of suspense and discovery.
	www.metacritic.com /film/titles/mariafullofgrace (1111 words)

	OFFOFFOFF film review MARIA FULL OF GRACE (Maria, llena eres de gracia) movie by Joshua Marston with Catalina Sandino ...
		i do not clap maria \'s decision to put her son on risk but it is important to recall that she did it for a better future for her,her family and her son.
		All Maria has to do is get on a plane and carry some "rolls of film" to their destination in New York (actually New Jersey, a "small town outside New York"), where she'll be paid $100 a unit.
		Maria's journey is an all-expense-paid tour of the drug underground, where one false move can land the naive teenager in prison or the grave — and one phone call back to Colombia could be a death sentence for her whole family.
	www.offoffoff.com /film/2004/mariafullofgrace.php (796 words)

	www.TheGline.com: DVD of the Week: (04-05-05): Maria Full of Grace
		Maria also doesn’t let herself be pushed around, and there’s a remarkable scene where she talks back to her handlers, demanding the money owed her when they seem quite willing to stiff her.
		Maria chose to become a mule—just as, also, she allowed herself to become pregnant, quit her job, and do all of the other things that got her into this mess in the first place.
		Maria has admiration for its main character, who listens resolutely to her heart to do the right things—but it also does not make drug-smuggling look the least bit glamorous, or enthralling, or fun, and that is as it should be.
	www.thegline.com /dvd-of-the-week/2005/04-05-2005.htm (1162 words)

	Maria, Full of Grace
		Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is full of grace in the sense that she sees the world for what it really is. She sees the hopeless state of her life, her family, and her culture, and realizes that there is little hope of becoming more than she was born as.
		But in “Maria, Full of Grace” there is a respect for the central character that prevents us from detaching from her.
		Maria is not an extreme or tragic figure, but a normal woman who realizes that de-thorning roses will not take her anyplace and who refuses to accept failure and misery as the only possible option.
	movies.zertinet.com /2004/mariafullofgrace.htm (739 words)

	Amazon.com: Maria Full of Grace: DVD: Catalina Sandino Moreno,Virgina Ariza,Yenny Paola Vega,Rodrigo Sánchez ... (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Maria is a Colombian teenager who, for a large paycheck, agrees to be a mule for drug-runners: she has to swallow dozens of thumb-sized capsules of heroin and smuggle them into New York.
		For Maria that amount is a virtual fortune and seems worth the risk that one of those pellets could break in her stomach and kill her.
		Maria Full of Grace is a moving and powerful motion picture about a girl who goes in over her head when she longs for a better life.
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002TT0MI?v=glance (2319 words)

	GreenCine \| product main - Maria Full of Grace (2003)
		However, the task involves her acting as a drug mule and smuggling heroin into the U.S. Maria Full of Grace premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the dramatic competition.
		Maria Full of Grace is one of the better films of 2004: well acted, well written, and very unique in its' story.
		The viewer is thrust into the mind, soul and spirit of Maria as she goes from unsatisfied girl friend and family member to "mule" for a drug cartel.
	www.greencine.com /webCatalog?id=104872 (560 words)

	AboutFilm.com - Maria Full of Grace (2004)
		Maria Full of Grace is Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno).
		Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) contemplates the heroin pellets she must swallow in Maria Full of Grace.
		Maria Full of Grace is the work of an artist, a journalist, an educator, and an anthropologist.
	www.aboutfilm.com /movies/m/mariafullofgrace.htm (867 words)

	Maria Full of Grace (Maria, llena eres de gracia)
		Maria Full of Grace is almost just thorns, blunted only slightly by Marston's unusual fairness towards the working poor of Colombia, who turn to the drug trade to make a living.
		Maria and her best friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) quit the flower plant to become human smuggling containers, armed with tickets to New York and a rendezvous with scumbags ready to harvest the drugs upon arrival.
		The wonder of Maria Full of Grace is witnessing the evolution of Maria from belligerent child to responsible adult.
	filmfreakcentral.net /screenreviews/mariafullofgrace.htm (431 words)

	FilmStew.com • Maria Full of Grace (Site not responding. Last check: )
		With Maria in the United States, thousands of dollars in drugs in her stomach and the drug dealers threatening to “visit” her family if the drop isn’t made, the young woman’s problems only seem to be multiplying.
		This may give Marston the ability to represent Maria as the face of a thousand stories (as the poster says), but it doesn’t give the audience any reason to think that this narrative is particularly worth hearing.
		Maria Full of Grace is a film that will hold your attention, and it is one that will educate you about the horrific things that people endure every day while sneaking drugs into the country.
	www.filmstew.com /Content/Article.asp?ContentID=9226&Pg=2 (775 words)

	'Maria' Full of Grace Indeed (washingtonpost.com)
		If this were a musical, and if "Maria" weren't so deadly serious, she might burst into song about a better life, like Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" or Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz." But the texture of this movie is darker and, ultimately, scarier.
		Maria will get the opportunity she craves, but it's going to be the most harrowing test of her life.
		Maria seems to prevail through difficulties and setbacks others couldn't, thanks to her pluckiness and inviolable serenity.
	www.washingtonpost.com /wp-dyn/articles/A24556-2004Jul29.html (643 words)

	"Maria Full of Grace": A Magnificently Low-Key Look at the Dramatic World of Drug Smuggling
		Though mired in poverty, Maria has an independent spirit that won't be broken by either the unfeeling boss at her low-wage job (pulling thorns off roses destined for export, an occupation fraught with symbolic meaning), or by the dysfunctional family that depends on her financially.
		"Maria Full of Grace" shifts gears once again to provide a healthy charge of suspense as we wonder whether Maria and her fellow mules will survive the flight, the passage through customs in New York, and the brutal gangsters who come to meet them.
		"Joshua Marston", "Maria Full of Grace", "Catalina Sandino Moreno", "Sundance 2004"
	www.indiewire.com /movies/movies_040707maria.html (947 words)

	MARIA FULL OF GRACE Movie Review
		Maria Alvarez is a Colombian who lives with her mother, grandmother, sister and her sister’s son in a small scarcely comfortable home in the hills north of Bogotá.
		Maria has a boyfriend, Juan (Wilson Guerrero), but they are just going through the motions, bored with each other and ambivalent about discovering that Maria is pregnant.
		She flies to New York with a belly full of drugs where she is pulled aside at the airport as a suspected drug courier.
	www.searchsa.com.au /Review/Movie_Review.asp?id=209 (625 words)

	:: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Maria Full of Grace (xhtml)
		Maria is young and pretty and filled with fire, and when she finds she's pregnant, she isn't much impressed by the attitude of Juan, her loser boyfriend.
		Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is being exploited by the drug business, but she sees it as an opportunity.
		Maria is a victim of economic pressures, but she doesn't think like a victim.
	rogerebert.suntimes.com /apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040730/REVIEWS/407300303/1023 (718 words)

	TheMovieBoy Review - Maria Full of Grace (2004)
		"Maria Full of Grace" chronicles a particular form of drug transportation that the common U.S. population (myself included, out of being either naive or just plain uninformed) likely is not familiar with—that of human mules, hired to swallow pellets of drugs in order to transfer them across country borders without getting caught.
		Everything is at stake for Maria, a protagonist whose unfair lot in life has led her to make one mistake after the next, and she remains a specifically honed, sympathetic figure because the viewer is allowed a look at her life before she becomes a mule.
		For Maria, whose life has only just begun, she deserves to be happy, and the decision she makes at the very end is the critical first step at a chance of becoming just that.
	www.themovieboy.com /reviews/m/04_mariafog.htm (798 words)

	The New Yorker: The Critics: The Current Cinema (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno), the heroine of the superb independent film “Maria Full of Grace,” arrives early in life at an awful moment of decision: she must either take a big risk with her future or fall into the nullity of routine, perhaps forever.
		Maria’s instincts tell her that she has to take the job, dangerous as it is, in order to survive.
		Maria’s story—an everyday experience of terror which has the shape of a fable—may not seem important enough, or sympathetic enough, or violent enough for a Hollywood feature, but for those of us who want to know the details, the habits, the emotions of this particular comingto-America story, the absence of hype is a relief.
	www.newyorker.com /critics/cinema?040726crci_cinema (1504 words)

	Review: Maria Full of Grace (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Maria Full of Grace, the feature debut from Joshua Marston, tells the stories of three mules who travel from Colombia to New York with more than fifty pellets of cocaine in their bellies.
		For Maria's family, this is a harsh economic blow, because everyone living in the small house - including her mother, grandmother, and unmarried sister - relies in part on Maria's wages to survive.
		Maria, desperately unhappy with her current lot in life, wants an opportunity for herself and her unborn child.
	movie-reviews.colossus.net /movies/m/maria_full.html (912 words)

	Maria Full of Grace (María, llena eres de gracia) (Site not responding. Last check: )
		It is fitting, then, that Maria, the 17- year-old title character in Maria Full of Grace, works in a rose processing plant in Colombia, stripping the thorns from the stems before the flowers are packed for shipping.
		Maria seems to be the only member of her household (mother, grandmother, sister and sister's infant) bringing in any money at all; her family holds her responsible for their support.
		Catalina Sandino Moreno's already widely praised performance as Maria is both sensitive and luminous, bringing genuine humanity to a character that has been programmed to represent the stories of many such poor women, trapped in hardscrabble lives with few alternatives open to them.
	www.culturevulture.net /Movies9/MariaFullofGrace.htm (485 words)

	DVD review of Maria Full Of Grace - DVD Town (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Maria’s already miniscule wages go entirely towards helping her family, which consists of her grandmother, her mother and her sister Diana (Johanna Andrea Mora), who is a single mother of an infant.
		More than anything, “Maria Full of Grace” is a relentless and eye-popping examination of the profound and damaging effects that the Colombian drug cartels have on the youth of this poor South American country.
		Unfortunately, even as “Maria Full of Grace” serves ample notice to the hard and cold facts, the filmmaking style is decidedly common, with Marston preferring to stick to the tried and true ways of normal filming and editing.
	www.dvdtown.com /review/mariafullofgrace/13984/2520 (1599 words)

	Maria Full of Grace Review - FilmFocus.Co.UK
		Maria Full of Grace is one of the most important films of the year.
		In Full: What needs to be said about Maria Full of Grace enough to inspire a trip to the cinema can be neatly wrapped up into one sentence: Catalina Sandino Moreno is so good that, in her first ever acting job, she won seven awards and was nominated for Best Actress at this year's Oscars.
		Maria Full of Grace is certainly not the first story to attach a human drama to drug trafficking but, unlike many before it, we're challenged to put ourselves in Maria's place and fully understand the journey she's taking.
	www.filmfocus.co.uk /review.asp?ReviewID=158 (654 words)

	DVD Times - Maria Full of Grace (Site not responding. Last check: )
		As such we witness Maria, the film’s protagonist, through her home life — sharing a house with four generations of her family — and work environment, through religion and the tiny role occupied by her boyfriend, even though he’s recently gotten her pregnant.
		Indeed, we leave the film not so much with memories of Maria herself, but the logistics of becoming a mule: the sheer number of pellets they swallow for one trip; the manufacture of these pellets; the way in which they practise how to swallow them using grapes; Maria’s young age (we’re told she’s only seventeen).
		Maria Full of Grace comes with the presentation you’d expect for its Region 2 UK release.
	www.dvdtimes.co.uk /content.php?contentid=58560 (1006 words)

	#4: Maria Full of Grace (María, llena eres de gracia)
		Marston has reported that Maria Full of Grace was inspired by his acquaintance with a neighbor who came to Brooklyn as a drug "mule," the horribly but unavoidably cruel colloquialism for women, usually young girls, who are recruited to smuggle drugs into the U.S. (and, no doubt, elsewhere) by transporting them inside their bodies.
		Maria is bitingly resentful of her own naïveté, and of the living conditions which keep her trapped and at the mercy of foolhardy peers and unreliable elders.
		Maria is able to find her footing on foreign ground rather easily, though she's once again in a tenuous situation where everything hovers on the brink of ruin.
	www.nicksflickpicks.com /mariagrc.html (1947 words)

	Cynthia Fuchs reviews Maria Full of Grace@Arts & Opinion
		The sole source of income for her family (her mother, sister Diana and baby), Maria is resentful and yearns for respite from the poverty that seems overwhelming.
		Maria knows what this means: ‘rolls of film’; are drugs, and she understands that she will be carrying them inside, by swallowing them.
		Jim Denault's subtle, handheld cinematography sympathetically illuminates Maria's perspective (dilemma) without overstating the obvious: she's in crisis, she's coping as best she can (Moreno's performance is astounding, as her face conveys the complexity of Maria's experience, without speaking it).
	www.artsandopinion.com /2004_v3_n5/fuchs-4.htm (789 words)

	hoopla.nu - Maria Full of Grace (María llena eres de gracia)
		Shot with hand-held cameras, Maria Full of Grace is not for anyone with a vestibular disorder - I felt dizzy and nauseous at times watching this poorly shot film, and I continue to resent this trend.
		Maria Full of Grace is not a fun film to watch, but it is a well-made tale, and is moving in its portrayal of life in Colombia.
		I was never once distracted by the camera moves in Maria Full Of Grace, and upon reflection a more traditional system of hundreds of camera set-ups probably would have detracted from the emotional purity and rawness of the narrative.
	hoopla.nu /films/mfog/mfogindex.html (1002 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)