Maria Full of Grace – Dir. Josh Marsden

In the ever-expanding genre of “drug” movies it is rare that you ever get to meet or see characters other than the dealers or the spiraling users. In the powerful “Maria Full of Grace,” you are confronted with three people who become involved in the drug trade as survival mechanism more than out of habit or means of power and riches. Maria, a poor Columbian girl, stuck in a dead end job in a flower factory, agrees to become a human mule swallowing 62 balloons of heroin that she will deliver for a few thousand dollars to New York. As perilous as this seems the incredible thing about this film is that the real story becomes about so much more. Filled with more a few perfect performances and some unexpected plot twists, this film is a real treasure that never finds a need to preach, but merely allows the story to speak affectingly for itself.