Maria Full of Grace

Originally Written and Posted at Epinions.com on 1/22/05 w/ Additional Edits

Written and directed by Joshua Marston, Maria Full of Grace is the story of a 17-year old woman who reluctantly becomes a drug mule to help her family in Colombia as she realizes the consequences she is facing. The film is an exploration of a young woman trying to deal with her circumstances as well as the sense of the unknown and risks she is taking as the role of Maria Alvarez is played by Catalina Sandino Moreno. Also starring Yenny Paola Vega, Guiled Lopez, John Alex Toro, Patricia Rae, and Wilson Guerrero. Maria Full of Grace is an astonishing film from Joshua Marston.

For the 17-year-old Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno), her life isn't easy while working in a flowering plantation pruning rose thorns with her friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega). Working to support her mother, a grandmother, and older sister Diana (Johanna Andrea Mora) who has a baby, Maria feels like the only person who is doing anything. Her work life is very dismal compared to her social life as she learns she is pregnant with her boyfriend Juan (Wilson Guerrero) as the father. Juan doesn't want to do anything so she breaks up with him and her work life gets worse as she quits her job. Her family is upset that she quit because her meager paycheck is what keeps them working but Maria is still willing to look for another job.

After meeting a smooth-talking man named Franklin (John Alex Toro) at a party, they meet again as he takes her to Bogota where he can get her a job. They go to Bogota where she learns that the job is to be a drug mule. They meet with the boss of the drug trade named Javier (Jaime Osorio Gomez) who asks some questions to Maria. He warns her about what could go wrong and everything but she takes the job. She goes home on a bus where she meets a fellow mule in Lucy (Guilied Lopez) who trains her to swallow big grapes that are shaped like the pellets she's going to carry. Maria mustn't bite the grapes or have holes in them or else she dies. With Javier giving Maria some money to pay off some bills for her family, Maria tells them she's taking a secretarial job in Bogota where she packs her things and gets a ride from Franklin.

Upon arriving in Bogota, she learned that Blanca is going to become a mule herself working for an associate of Javier. Maria goes to a clinic where she swallows 62 pellets worth of heroin that she must carry into New York City and stay there for the week where she'll receive $5000 for her work. With a passport, addresses, and other documents that she needed to get into the U.S., she, Lucy, Blanca, and another mule go on the plane from Bogota to New York. Having to hold in the pellets, they must not go to the bathroom but Maria does where two pellets come out but she puts them back in her stomach carefully as she arrives. Upon checking into customs, she learns that Lucy is sick as she is hoping to contact Lucy's sister Carla (Patricia Rae) about Lucy's condition. After going through customs, Maria learns the trouble of the trade as she seeks help from Carla and a Colombian businessman named Don Fernando (Orlando Tobon). There, Lucy learns of the sacrifices and trouble that is involved in the smuggling business as she learns the hard truth of life in America and Colombia.

Developed at the Sundance Institute, the film has all the makings of an indie film aesthetic and budget but thanks to Joshua Marston's gripping vision, the film is loaded with realism and a brooding tone that makes it compelling. Marston succeeds in his direction with his approach where scenes involving the customs search, airplanes, and the scenes involving the drugs and swallow pellets are very uneasy to watch. It's that sense of discomfort that works, notably in its screenplay where the film’s structure is filled with this dark momentum coming around and a third act where the morals and questions come into play. It's truly one of the smartest and most human scripts from a newcomer like Marston.

Marston’s eye-wielding vision is complemented greatly by cinematographer Jim Denault who uses some wonderful and steady handheld camera into the film that plays to the point-of-view of its protagonist and the way it captures the look of Colombia and New York where they have certain similarities as well as its differences from the polished New York to the more downtrodden town that Maria lives. With the look helped by production designers Debbie De Villa and Monica Marulanda and art director Yann Blanc for capturing that contrasting look of its locations. Editors Anne McCabe and Lee Percy help create a very straightforward yet methodical approach to the ending to play into its drama and suspense. The film's music by composers Leonardo Heiblum and Jacobo Lieberman have a nice, atmospheric tone that also plays well to the vibrant, Latin feel of the film's music.

The film's superb cast is filled with great performances, notably smaller ones from Johanna Andrea Mora as Maria's selfish sister and Wilson Guerrero as Maria’s loser boyfriend Juan. Jaime Osorio Gomez is excellent in the role of the drug leader Javier who brings a fraternal tone to his character as opposed to the big-shot tones done previously in most drug films. Orlando Tobon is another fraternal figure in the film as a man who is like a leader in Colombian communities in Queens, New York who provides the film's morality and makes Maria face her own conscious. John Alex Toro is wonderfully charming as Franklin while Patricia Rae brings an emotional center as Lucy’s sister, notably in the film's final act where she brings an intensity that is powerful. Guilied Lopez is also wonderful as Lucy with an understated performance as she teaches Maria the trade. Yenny Paola Vega is really the film's best supporting performance as Maria's pesky best friend who truly wants the money and is the one who doesn't have morals but by the end, realize the trouble they’re in as Vega gives a realistic, troubling performance.

The film's breakthrough is Catalina Sandino Moreno who gives probably the best debut performance of 2004. Moreno brings an external quality with her face and beauty that is very natural and very realistic while possessing a determination and grit that are evocative to watch. She doesn't make her character sympathetic or into someone that is very generous or good but someone who is rebellious yet has a sense of morality. Moreno makes her character grow and we feel sorry for her yet what she is doing is really awful but her choices and motivation is always filled with good intentions. Moreno is truly the heart and soul of the movie and she is a great discovery to watch.

The film's DVD doesn't include much except English, Spanish, and French subtitles with 2.0 and 5.1 Spanish audio mixing. Done in the typical 16:9 widescreen format, the movie looks and sounds great on DVD. The special features only includes two different trailers for the movie along with three trailers for HBO produced films like Real Women Have Curves, Gus Van Sant's Elephant, and the 2003 Sundance Award-winning American Splendor. Writer/director Joshua Marston provides an insightful audio commentary to the film talking about the technical aspects along with some of the things that goes on with the drug smuggling as well as the performances of the cast notably Moreno whom he discovered through audition tapes.

Maria Full of Grace is a powerful yet gripping film from Joshua Marston with an entrancing performance from Catalina Sandino Moreno. It's a film that explores the world of drug trafficking as well as what people will do in order to help others and later deal with the troubling consequences. In the end, Maria Full of Grace is a remarkable film from Joshua Marston.

© thevoid99 2014

New York, I Love You

New York, I Love You is an anthology film about love in the city of New York that collects 11 shorts film by ten different filmmaker. The second part of the City of Love anthology films that was preceded by the 2006 anthology film Paris, Je T’aime. The film includes stories directed by Brett Ratner, Joshua Marston, Mira Nair, Fatih Akin, Natalie Portman, Yvan Attal, Allen Hughes, Jiang Wen, Shekhar Kapur, Shunji Iwai, and inserts by Randy Balsmeyer. The film includes an all-star cast that includes Natalie Portman, Irffan Khan, Christina Ricci, Orlando Bloom, Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Maggie Q, Bradley Cooper, Shia LaBeouf, Drea de Matteo, Olivia Thirlby, James Caan, Anton Yelchin, Blake Lively, Julie Christie, and John Hurt. New York, I Love You is a pretty good film that has some moments that is cluttered with some unnecessary transitions.

A young thief (Hayden Christensen) tries to woo a young lady (Rachel Bilson) at a bar where he meets her much older boyfriend (Andy Garcia) while dealing with other issues. Meanwhile, an Indian jeweler (Irrfan Khan) talks with a Jewish woman (Natalie Portman) who is set to be married the next day as they discuss their cultural differences. A young music composer (Orlando Bloom) is trying to finish some music for a film as a young woman (Christina Ricci) keeps calling him to discuss the things the director wants. A writer (Ethan Hawke) engages into a conversation with a married woman (Maggie Q) as they share a smoke together. In the fifth segment, a young man (Anton Yelchin) has been dumped by his ex-girlfriend (Blake Lively) as his local pharmacist (James Caan) helps him by having his handicapped daughter (Olivia Thirlby) as his date.

A man (Bradley Cooper) and a woman (Drea de Matteo) are in different areas of the city thinking about their dissolving relationship. A woman (Julie Christie) returns to a hotel that she likes as she befriends an immigrant bellhop (Shia LaBeouf) as a hotel manager (John Hurt) listens. A young girl (Taylor Geare) walks around Central Park with her nanny (Carlos Acosta) as they wait for the return of her mother (Jacinda Barrett). A painter (Ugur Yucel) is transfixed by a beautiful woman (Shi Qu) as he wants to paint her. A businessman (Chris Cooper) meets a woman (Robin Wright) outside a restaurant as they talk while she is trying to get her husband to notice. Meanwhile, an old couple (Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman) bicker as they walk to Coney Island while a young woman (Emilie Ohana) is trying to create a video project of all the things she’s seeing.

In this eleven shorts and transition sequences, it’s all about New York City and love through this anthology film made by several filmmakers. Yet, the approach for the entire film doesn’t come across as exciting due to the transition sequences made by Randy Balsmeyer, with writing by Hall Powell, Israel Horovitz, and James Strouse, end up being very distracting and confusing. Largely because characters from the shorts pop up in the transitions with some wondering if they’re still watching some shorts or just a mesh of a bunch of stories. Whatever the approach is, it doesn’t work nor is there a lot of mention throughout the film until the final credits on who directed and wrote each segment.

The film starts off in a bad way with Jiang Wen‘s short that was created with writers Hu Hong and Meng Yao, with Israel Horovitz providing the English adaptation, about a young thief. Along with the transition sequences, that short along with the short that Allen Hughes, with writers Xan Cassavetes and Stephen Winter, had about the dissolving couple speaking in voice-overs and Shekhar Kapur’s short, that was written by the late Anthony Minghella, about an old woman and a crippled bellhop borders into either pretentiousness or just bad storytelling.

Those shorts and the transitions are among the problems with the film while all of them have a similar palette to the cinematography that doesn’t make it very outstanding nor gives a lot of the films a chance to stand out on its own. Kapur’s short does try to put something different to the photography but it only adds to stupidity of that short. Despite the uninspired colored palette schemes and distracting transitions, the rest of the shorts by the other filmmakers do bring in some surprises.

Among them is the short Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson create about a young man needing a date for the senior prom that proves to be funny but also heartwarming. Mira Nair’s short, with a script by Suketu Mehta, has a very engaging story about cultural differences and longing that proves to be one of the highlights. The two shorts that Yvan Attal made, with writer Olivier Lecot, about the writer and married woman and the businessman talking with another married woman proved to be exciting for the looseness each story has. Fatih Akin’s short about the painter and his Asian muse is very good though it feels a bit shorter than the rest despite the artwork that is presented while the Shunji Iwai short, that is adapted into English by Israel Horovitz, is another surprise over its conversations and surprises.

Then there’s two other shorts that truly become the major highlights as Joshua Marston’s about the aging couple walking to Coney Island for their anniversary is very funny and heartwarming. The other is Natalie Portman’s whose short about a child and her male nanny ends up being the best of them due to its loose style that is in tune with cinema verite but also has a wandering style that is reminiscent of the work of Terrence Malick. While the final result has a lot of great shorts with some touching stories, it only gets bogged down by its lack of visual style for each short as well as a few awful shorts and unnecessary transitional sequences.

On the performance front, there’s not a lot that stands out as anything that involves Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson is bad news. The best performances go to James Caan, Natalie Portman, Olivia Thirlby, Anton Yelchin, Eli Wallach, Cloris Leachman, Irrfan Khan, Chris Cooper, and Robin Wright as they each bring something joyful to the characters they play.

New York, I Love You is a worthwhile anthology film that has some moments but is very weak in comparison to its predecessor Paris Je T’aime. While the shorts from Mira Nair, Brett Ratner, Yvan Attal, and Joshua Marston are among some of their best work while Natalie Portman’s short is an indication of her rising talents as a filmmaker. There’s stuff in the film that aren’t very good along with transitional sequences that just reeks of pretentiousness. In the end, New York, I Love You is best watch from the good shorts the film has to offer but not as an entire film.

Paris Je T'aime - (Tbilisi, I Love You) Rio, Eu Te Amo

© thevoid99 2011