Definitely a great movie. It is a very simple plot but it hooks you right away and there is no way to predict what is gonna happen. The situations might not seem the most realistic, but the acting is very good and the pacing is phenomenal.

Una disección a un trabajo fáustico. La penosa realidad de las mulas sudamericanas narrado en forma orgánica, dando la idea que uno está viendo hechos reales. El que no quede impresionado, debería ver un doctor.

Gripping. Super realistic. Watch this film.

If Maria Full of Grace was made exclusively in the United States, it would likely either be a shaky-cam thriller or an over-the-top drama with South America shown in washed-out color. But instead, this drug mule story from writer-director Joshua Marston feels brutal without spilling over into aggrandized excess; there are no glorified highs but the lows feel like they linger around each corner as Catalina Sandino Moreno as Maria (in an Oscar-nominated performance) resorts to her risky new occupation out of a combination of factors - the lure of quick money, the pit of poverty and the pressure of family, a desire for independence, and simply falling victim to fast talk. Though the settings are awfully familiar - airport hallways and domestic apartments - the film manages to capture that sense of pulse-pounding suspense associated with risking it all, a testament to the performances, the writing, and direction. Both a tough examination of the lengths people go in order to earn money, and being cast out on a river of desperation without a paddle. The reason people don't watch this movie isn't because it's poorly made, quite the contrary. They don't watch it because it's well-made and both upsetting and dark. Still one of the best films on the subject matter, and on the face of poverty beyond slow, somber advertisments featuring that one song from Sarah McLachlan. (3.5/5)

The best international movie ever made! With the best acting performance from Catalina Sandino Moreno! And the best filmmaking debut ever from Joshua Marston!

While there are countless movies that deal with the drug trade, rarely does a film look beyond the law enforcement and kingpin angle. This is not the case with Maria Full of Grace, a sobering movie about a young girl who avails herself of the opportunity to smuggle drugs from Bogota to New York. Catalina Sandino Moreno gives a subtle but powerful Oscar-nominated performance as Maria, who, after quitting her job removing thorns from roses, is unable to resist the financial temptation to consume sixty-two packets of heroin and board a plane to America. Told from her perspective, the film wisely avoids the trap of focusing on the police and the drug lords. The film effectively builds suspense as it follows her from the initial contact with the supplier to a tragic but ultimately optimistic experience in New York. Maria Full of Grace is a gem.

Not my taste story-wise but Moreno is so good you can't look away.

It was intriguing and very realistic. Couldn't keep my eyes off of the screen the whole time wondering what will go wrong and how things will turn out. Turns out Maria is full of hope and courage after all.

Shows the real human cost of drugs. There is one screen that is jaw droopingly tense. Hollywood would die to make a film half as good as this

One of the best movies I've seen in a while.

Un viaje por el rostro humano del trafico de drogas, lleva a Catalina Sandino al borde de un personaje desesperado y manipulado por la necesidad de progresar de manera facil en la vida, es un retrato crudo y esplendido que deja aires de melancolia por doquier.

Wonderful movie Great movie

I know this is an empathetic piece about the hardships of a drug mule, it's meaningful, and the actress does a great job. But, when I flip through movies I've seen before to rewatch on a rainy day, this one gets a big "nope." The words HUGE DRAG come to mind. Sorry.

Maria Full of Grace is about as straightforward as you can get when you’re making a movie about the ins-and-outs of young Colombian women who volunteer to be drug mules. I kept thinking there was going to be something more to the story, but other than a slight problem along the way the film is almost like a documentary. Maria Full of Grace seems to be a movie built to just inform the audience what it’s like being a drug mule. It was interesting and informative, but lacked the kind of personal connection that I was hoping to feel. I liked Maria as a character, because she seemed very smart and capable. When things started to go bad I expected she had another plan up her sleeve or she would make some bold move that would shock me. It was disappointing to find that she didn’t truly know what she was doing most of the time. However, Maria Full of Grace is a solid film because it feels authentic and honest. While I never fell in love with the characters and didn’t get fully invested in them, I was not bored with the story and I appreciated the ending.

Maria's not so good at making decisions. Seventeen, impulsive, but dazzlingly street smart, she's better at living in the moment, improving the moment, than looking further into the far more important unknowns of the future. But who can say they're much different at an age where almost everything is at a crossroads? For most, a period of potentially severe, but mostly innocent, mistakes are made that alter a person's perception of themselves, maturing inevitably. But Maria makes two detrimental false moves in a row that change the course of her life forever. First, without thinking remotely about the consequences, she gets knocked up by her impetuous boyfriend. Then, after causing an inimical error at work, she promptly quits following her being humiliated by her boss (despite the fact that the income is vital in the supporting of her family). Maybe she'd recover decently, if slowly, if finding an honest job were the first thing on her mind. Alas, en route to a nearby town to try to look for something to help in the bringing home of the bacon, she's approached by a drug trafficker who sees high possibility in her having success as a mule. Her pregnancy entails that customs agents cannot X-Ray her no matter how hard they'd like, and her desperation, combined with her youth, provides her with an enthusiastic vitality that reassures that backing out isn't an option. Preferring to exclusively ponder the positives of the slimy occupation as opposed to the agonizingly long list of negatives, Maria throws caution to the wind and heads down a path traveled by many young women as despairing as she is. But because being in cahoots with ruthless real-life super villains is never much favorable in the grand scheme of living a long, healthy life, she might come to regret her decision almost immediately if she had much else on her mind besides making the most of dire circumstances. How harrowing it is to watch as a vivacious young thing risks throwing her life away for a cash cow that could help her (albeit obsequiously), but since "Maria Full of Grace" makes for a convincingly harrowing viewing experience, the ride up to its unexpectedly bittersweet conclusion is more nail-bitingly thrilling than outrightly depressing. As Maria, the then twenty-three-year-old Caterina Sandino Moreno is so self-assured that we never have a second in which we doubt her, in which we're persuaded that she might turn out to be a tragic heroine after all. So commanding of the screen is she that we're wont to believe that the movie is going to act like a coming-of-age film titan, not a morality tale about tainted youth. The movie's too energetic, too alive, anyway, for us to decide that writer/director Joshua Marston is moving in the direction of cynicism and not in the direction of a winning portrayal of personal growth. Not to suggest that "Maria Full of Grace" is an altogether glowingly inspiring feature. With one foot in realism's door and another cemented in a floor covered in flagrant hope, it makes for an authentic look into the goings-on that become the merciless drug trade. Like a documentary in its blatant disfavor for cinematic romanticism, it doesn't take any wrong turns in its characterization of the oftentimes savage business - that Maria survives her ordeal is a miracle. With its promotional poster citing "Maria Full of Grace" as being inspired by countless other true stories very much the same at their centers, we're reminded that, while Maria is a leading character worth rooting for, undoubtable is the truth that countless other likable non-fictional protagonists perhaps went down the exact same path but ultimately came out with tragic results themselves. That ushers in emotional depth that gives the film an additional flavoring of urgency, and in effect does "Maria Full of Grace" become a wide-ranging, almost universal tale. A small-scale triumph.

Slight, fairly dull retread of poor girl taking extreme measures to make some money, with little to say about the moral choices she makes.

cinegeek.de Ich bin immer noch ziemlich beeindruckt von Maria, die am Fliessband arbeitet in Kolumbien: Maria ist jung und schon und hat Feuer! Nachdem sie herausgefunden hat, dass sie schwanger ist, beeindruckt sie die Attitude ihres Loser Freundes Juan gar nicht weiter. Sie wirft ihren Job hin und geht nach Bogota. Dort trifft sie einen Mann, der Maria erzählt, sie könnte viel Geld verdienen als "Mule", als Drogen-Kurier mit Dutzenden kleiner Päckchen Kokain im Magen... Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) wird ausgebeutet vom Drogengeschäft, sie selbst aber sieht das als Chance. Ihre beste Freundin Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) will sie begleiten. Wertvolle Tipps erhalten sie von Lucy (Giulied Lopez), die den Job früher schon gemacht hat. Lucy will mitkommen, um ihre Schwester in New York zu besuchen. Am Kennedy Airport erwecken die Mädchen zwar sofort Verdacht, Maria aber darf nicht durchleuchtet werden, weil sie schwanger ist. Lucy aber fühlt sich krank; eines der Päckchen ist geplatzt und sie stirbt an einer Überdosis. Zwei Drogen Dealer "kümmern" sich um die Mädchen und schaffen den toten Körper weg. Für sie ist das nichts weiter als eine geschäftliche Ausgabe. Maria, die zwar ein Opfer wirtschaftlicher Armut ist, fühlt sich überhaupt nicht als solches. Sie hat Mumm und ist intelligent! Der Film erspart uns zum Glück die üblichen Klischees über die Drogen-Kartells und während Marias Operation erleben wir nicht das zutiefst Böse, sondern eine Riege ziemlich unfähiger Typen. Ein Dorgen-Film ohne Maschinengewehre und Verfolgungsjagden, dafür mit einer Entwicklungsgeschichte. Im Mittelpunkt: Catalina Sandino Moreno, eine Schauspielerin mit leuchtenden Augen und ganz viel Charisma! Maria Full Of Grace wurde von dem US Debütanten Joshua Marston mit geringen Mitteln gemacht. Er entdeckte die Nicht-Schauspielerin und besetzte sie neben weiteren Nicht-Profis. Sein Film strahlt diese Frische und Dringlichkeit auch aus, die sagen will: Das Leben geschieht hier und jetzt! Maria nimmt die Welt einfach so, wie sie ist und versucht, darin zu überleben. Ihre wichtigste entscheidung: Sie macht sich auf die Suche nach der Schwester der toten Lucy... Marston hat einen Film gemacht, der die Armut der Menschen versteht, ohne aber der Versuchung erliegen, sie zu romantisieren. Er zeigt auf, das die "bösen" Dinge entstehen durch das System der Ökonomie - nicht weil sie von "Bösewichtern" verantwortet werden. Es reicht nicht aus, den "Schurken" zu erledigen und alles wird wieder "gut" - denn dieser Schurke existiert nicht. In mehrerlei Hinsicht ist Maria Full Of Grace aussergewöhnlich: Zum einen, weil der Film sich traut, ganze gewöhnliche Verhältnisse zu zeigen. Was wir hier sehen, ist einfach das tägliche Leben mit plausiblen Motiven und verständlichen Entscheidungen. Wir erleben Charaktere am Existenzminimum. Die beiden Mittelsmänner, welche die Mädchen empfangen: Im Grunde sind auch sie ganz normal. Sie handeln verdorben und auch grausam, was aber nicht bedeutet, dass wir es hier mit "Bösewichtern" zu tun haben. Zum zweiten traut sich Maria Full Of Grace (anders als die allermeisten Drogenfilme) auf glamoröse Stars und teure Effekte zu verzichten. Das hier ist eine Welt, die unterhalb des Radars existiert und in der es nur darum geht, dass Mädchen wie Maria oder Lucy hoffentlich ihren Flug überleben werden!

A gritty, authentic depiction of what can happen to people as casualties to the Drug Trade, indeed. However, it's NOT a "Good Time" feature. Is depressing as hell. As a curiosity to people who want to understand the underbelly of the Drug Trade & Third-World economics, it's a decent primer, but as a person in Law Enforcement, I thought it was bleak & unrewarding. Without any redemption value, the story was positively documentary as opposed to entertaining in the least.

A slowly devastating, realistic film that tells a tale of desperate people forced into horrific circumstances.

airplane sequence was tense as piss/hell. great raw story. makes you not even want to be a drug mule! :(