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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Movie Listings
The Film File
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. Most people don't recognize that kind of moment when it happens, but Maria, who is seventeen and works in a factory in a small Colombian city near Bogota, stripping the thorns off rose stems, fully grasps what's at stake. That's why she has grace--she's ignorant of many things but not of her limited chances. Her job will lead nowhere, and the wishy-washy young man who has got her pregnant isn't worth sticking around for. Her sister is unmarried with a baby and no money, and Maria is heading in the same direction. When a young hustler lures her to Bogota on his motorbike, it doesn't take long to find out that he wants more than her company. He suggests that she become a "mule," carrying heroin into the United States. The pay is five thousand dollars a trip--about three times the average yearly income in Colombia. Moral considerations are hardly an issue. Maria's instincts tell her that she has to take the job, dangerous as it is, in order to survive.
Joshua Marston, a thirty-five-year-old N.Y.U. film-school graduate, nosed around Colombia and...
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