Film review: Maria, Full of Grace

It’s the kind of film that stays with you for a long time afterwards. It’s not exactly a feel-good film, nor is it one I’d pick off the shelf to wind down with before bed. But if you want a film that will really grip you, even shock and sadden you, all whilst opening your eyes to the reality of life elsewhere, then here you have it.

Take one pregnant, 17-year-old girl from a poor village in Colombia who wants to escape the family she supports, the baby’s father who she doesn’t love and the country where she will never earn decent money. Maria is her name. Feeling trapped, it doesn’t take much for her to be tempted by an offer to earn a huge sum of money to smuggle drugs into the US.

The only proviso is that these drugs have to be ingested in the form of pellets – 100 small sacks filled with heroin and sealed with latex and dental floss – which must be swallowed whole and carried in Maria’s stomach until she reaches her destination. Not only does Maria risk being caught at US customs, she faces certain death should one of these pellets burst inside her as well as untold risk to her unborn child. Yet the film sees her determinedly practising by swallowing eye-wateringly large grapes and ultimately boarding the plane, drugs ingested, as we follow her gripping odyssey into danger.

Utterly engrossing, you can barely look away from the screen, the tension unbearable. Another drug mule staggers ashen-faced to the bathroom mid-air, while the interrogation at US customs leaves you holding your breath and wishing Maria safe passage. Job done – she’s through.

But it’s not over yet; the vulnerable teenager now finds herself on the streets of New York, surrounded by a language she doesn’t understand and people she doesn’t know. All she knows is that she has to deliver the drugs, every single pellet, safely and entirely, to a random address. Without wanting to reveal how the film ends, Maria’s mission becomes one of survival as the ruthless world of international drugs trafficking is exposed in harsh light.

Shot in documentary-style with a hand-held camera, this film is gritty, honest and powerful. It’s not flashy, it’s not clichéd and it doesn’t preach about morals. You can take away thoughts about the injustice of exploiting the poor to satisfy the pleasure of the rich, you can question the lengths that someone would go to to better their life, but most of all you can admire Maria for remaining dignified, calm and graceful – as the title implies – throughout her whole experience. It’s a tribute to the human spirit, and in that sense this is the real silver lining.

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