Maria Full of Grace
By Marcela Grajales
ENG 1430
In today’s world, drugs are saturating the communities, teenage girls are getting pregnant, and crime and violence are on the rise. Whether we want to accept it or not, we must make everyone aware of the real issues affecting our lives. Some years ago, people used to hide the truth about big issues and make a big deal out of small ones. We were not allowed to show sex scenes or other scandalous things. However, modern movies do not miss the opportunity of showing these realities. Society is constantly going through changes which forces people to be more realistic and open-minded. In fact, Maria Full of Grace is one of the most realistic movies; it shows what people from other countries will do and how far they can go when they are in need of money. They can lose their dignity, whether by choice or not, and many times they can become selfish and forget about those they love.
Maria Full of Grace catches the audience’s attention right away. It is a movie that feels lived in instead of acted (New York Times). It portrays the cruel reality of what immigrants will do to provide food and shelter to their families. Maria is a young girl who has to work for a very low wage at a large rose plantation to support her family. Many people can identify with the main character, working in a job they do not like, being mistreated and feeling inferior, and knowing they do not have a better future.
Another way of getting the audience’s attention is showing step by step what a “mule”, a drug smugger goes through, and the different consequences it could have when they are doing their “job”. One impressive scene was when Maria was getting trained to become a mule. Lucy, who had done this a couple of times, shows Maria the process. Because grapes are about the same size of a drug capsule, they use this fruit as an example so the person will get used to this. Lucy did it three times, as if she was swallowing water. Maria was shocking herself, until she got the hang of it.
Many mules do their job as they fight to keep their dignity. They try to succeed in that “dirty world” without hurting their loved ones. Lucy (Guilled Lopez), for example, never told her family about what she was doing because she knew she was betraying the morals and values her family had taught her.
The procedure did not leave any details to the audience’s imagination; at the end of the movie Lucy died because one of the drug capsules she had swallowed exploded inside her body. Once dead, the drug dealers got the drugs from Lucy by cutting her stomach. The merchandise was more valuable to them than Lucy’s life. The scene of her death was brutal and very real. Her terrible and dramatic blood was all over the bathroom, making the audience feel the pain.
Another character, Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno), faces the challenge with a determination and ingenuity that compromise but never undermine her essential decency and morality. Maria lied to her family saying she was going to work at an office in the capital to justify leaving for a period of time. The movie shows every detail of how a mule begins, how to swallow the capsules, how to expel them out of her body. She escaped being caught at the airport due to her unborn child, which prevented the authorities from x-raying her. Maria then realizes how far she went by leaving her family and risking her life for dirty money. Therefore, she decided to go back home, but as she entered the airport she changed her mind. Out of the four mules, Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega), Maria’s best friend, was the only one who went back home. Lucy died, Maria stayed, and the fourth girl got arrested when she arrived.
Many people did not like Maria Full of Grace; they may think it is disrespectful to the United States of America. It shows evidence of how a pregnant woman can easily transport drugs and reach their goal, bringing drugs into the country. The movie can give people the message that it is very hard to be a mule but it is not impossible. People could take the movie in the wrong way and see that there is also an easier way to get money, not necessarily getting caught by the law.
Maria Full of Grace is a movie that keeps the audience on its toes attention at all times. It is a film about a reality that many want to ignore but is going on all over the world. This movie shows the truth and the consequences of working as a mule. It is the most realistic movie I have ever seen because it shows in great detail how far people will go when faced with hunger or simply ambition.