Maria Full of Grace

What constitutes a life of grace? Is it moral piety or exercising goodwill? Or does it spring from acting from one�s heart and desires? Joshua Marston�s auspicious debut feature, Maria Full of Grace, addresses these questions with inspired honesty and clarity.

Spirited and rebellious Maria Alvarez lives with three generations of her family in a cramped concrete house in a rural town north of Bogota. She works alongside her neighbors at a hazardous, mind-numbing job stripping thorns from flowers on a rose plantation. Because Maria�s paycheck supports the family, she is stuck. But her passion to break out of her limited world drives her to posh at its boundaries. When she meets Franklin, a stylish young man, he piques her interest with talk of a cool job that involves travel. However, when Franklin says the word �mule,� Maria realizes immediately what he means: swallowing dozens of thumb-sited rubber pellets full of heroin and transporting them to the United States.

Catalina Sandino Moreno gives an exceptional performance as a young woman facing this crossroads with bravery, grit, and yes�grace. Marston demonstrates a fantastic eye for detail and crafts a narrative with disarming rawness and authenticity. Maria Full of Grace is as important a story as it is an impressive directorial debut.