Maria Full of Grace (2004)

Directed by Joshua Marsten. Starring Catalina Sandino Moreno, Yenny Paola Vega, Guilied Lopez, Patricia Rae, John Álex Toro, Jaime Osorio Gómez, Virginia Cristina Ariza, Wilson Guerrero, Orlando Tobón. [R]

Newly-pregnant and jobless young Colombian woman (Moreno) reluctantly becomes a drug mule by swallowing several balloons filled with cocaine and traveling to New York City. Newcomer Moreno’s tightly-calibrated yet nuanced lead performance takes us through an arduous, harrowing journey that rarely surprises, yet refuses to stray into reckless melodrama. She’s sympathetic largely because she doesn’t ask for sympathy either from the audience or the other characters; since I didn’t know if doom or hope laid on her horizon, and because she put a subtly expressive face on a drug trade “statistic”, I got caught up in the detailed-yet-urgent story. Filmmaking debut for Joshua Marsten, who also wrote the screenplay.

76/100