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Persepolis
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Honeydripper
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Darfur Now
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George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead
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Grace Is Gone
64
Chronicle of an Escape
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Spiderwick Chronicles, The
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Under the Same Moon
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Flawless
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Walker, The
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Charlie Bartlett
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My Blueberry Nights
51
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
50
Other Boleyn Girl, The
49
Cassandra's Dream
48
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
47
Boarding Gate
47
Semi-Pro
46
Finishing the Game
46
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
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Rambo
45
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
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Rails & Ties
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Chaos Theory
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Bucket List, The
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Funny Games
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Drillbit Taylor
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Vantage Point
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Flash Point
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Eye, The
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Jumper
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Jack and Jill vs. the World
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Maria Full of Grace
Fine Line Features
MPAA RATING: R for drug content and language
Starring
Catalina Sandino Moreno,
Guilied Lopez,
Patricia Rae,
Orlando Tobon,
John Álex Toro,
and
Yenny Paola Vega
This film follows a bright, gutsy young woman on a life-changing -- and life-threatening -- odyssey from Colombia to New York, weaving a gripping narrative of risk, determination and survival. (Fine Line Features)
| GENRE(S): |
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Joshua Marston
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Joshua Marston
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: December 7, 2004
Video: December 7, 2004
Theatrical: July 16, 2004
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
101 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / Colombia |
| LANGUAGE(S): |
Spanish (with English subtitles) |
Original title "Maria, llena eres de gracia"; Audience Award (Dramatic), 2004 Sundance Film Festival; Best Actress (tie) (Moreno), 2004 Berlin International Film Festival; Best Actress (Moreno), 2004 Seattle International Film Festival
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Disturbing. It is impossible to sit through Maria Full of Grace and not be affected by the circumstances of the characters. For that, the credit must go to Marston and his actors.
100
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Unfolds with a simplicity that's as breathtaking as its inevitability is harrowing.
100
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Timely, pointed messages about oppression and opportunity come poignantly through in strongly dramatic terms.
100
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
In its vitality and finesse, Maria Full of Grace is all of a piece -- and both artistically and spiritually itself full of grace.
100
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
Sustains a documentary authenticity that is as astonishing as it is offhand. Even when you're on the edge of your seat, it never sacrifices a calm, clear-sighted humanity for the sake of melodrama or cheap moralizing.
100
The New Yorker
David Denby
Marston would probably have made an interesting movie no matter how he had shot it, but the way he dramatized the material seems instinctively right: he goes detail by detail, emotion by emotion, eliding nothing, exaggerating nothing.
100
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Moreno, with her wide, watchful eyes, owns the camera - and the film. Her performance is perfectly natural and profoundly moving. Maria Full of Grace is a remarkable picture, full of suspense and discovery.
100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
A story that rips fleshy holes through your heart.
100
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
A revelatory independent film whose moments of incredible sadness are offset by the same state of grace that blesses its astonishing title character.
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Leah McLaren
A fantastic film.
100
Portland Oregonian
Karen Karbo
Astonishes on many levels.
90
Newsweek
David Ansen
The movie puts us in Maria's shoes, taking us step by suspenseful step through her physical and spiritual ordeal.
90
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
A gripping, deeply moving film
90
Time
Richard Schickel
What we come to care most about in writer-director Joshua Marston's film is how his heroine achieves the state promised by his title, Maria Full of Grace. Our emotional investment in her derives primarily from the astonishing performance of Moreno, 23.
90
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
A remarkable -- and harrowing -- debut feature that makes you think there's hope after all for the future of independent films.
90
LA Weekly
Ella Taylor
The movie is thrillingly subjective, teeming with the fullness of everyday proletarian life that one finds in the work of the directors who most influenced Marston in the making of this movie: Hector Babenco and the Brazilian realists, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.
89
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
This may be the first film to examine the intricacies of the Colombia-to-U.S. drug route in any detail.
88
Baltimore Sun
Chris Kaltenbach
The true heartbreak of Maria Full of Grace is that it never comes.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
The movie has the freshness and urgency of life actually happening.
88
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Has a power that doesn't announce itself until it's over: You leave not wanting to give up on life, just resentful of the world we live in.
88
Chicago Tribune
Robert K. Elder
Takes a simple story and molds it into something eloquent and menacing.
88
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Gracefully acted, and the story packs a powerful punch straight to the gut.
88
New York Post
Megan Lehmann
More than a ripped-from-the- headlines drug drama, Maria Full of Grace is like a horror movie made real.
88
Premiere
Peter Debruge
In his first feature, director Joshua Marston passes no judgments. He doesn't condemn drugs. He merely depicts the system that has arisen to support this illicit trade.
88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Marston doesn't develop the characters, except for the strong-willed and quick-witted Maria.
80
Village Voice
Mark Holcomb
It's a remarkably assured and humane feature debut.
80
Film Threat
KJ Doughton
Isn’t really about drugs. It’s about what motivates people to make hard choices. However, deciding whether or not to view this unique glimpse into a seldom seen world should be easy. It’s a must-see.
80
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The depiction of her risky voyage and what happens afterward is highly suspenseful and entirely believable.
80
Slate
David Edelstein
The whole movie, of course, is a setting for its jewel, Catalina Sandino Moreno as Maria: With her clear, round eyes, long dark hair, and radiant transparency, she brings to mind two of the loveliest ingénues of the last quarter-century -- Meg Tilly and Jennifer Connelly.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
The film's only misstep is its again-used theme (especially when it comes to a woman's rite of passage) of exacting some punishing loss when our heroine pushes to transcend her limitations by seeking a better life.
75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Marston builds incredible tension. But it's the human drama etched on Moreno's young, weary face that gives Maria its potent punch.
75
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
Accomplishes two great things on what was undoubtedly a minuscule budget. It breathes life into a small story that has larger ramifications. It also shows that America, as represented by Jackson Heights, is still the promised land for people about whom movies are rarely made.
75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Shot in the style of a documentary, which lends the movie an aura of utter realism, Maria Full of Grace derives an unsettling power from the clinical details of Maria's ordeal.
70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Moreno's subtly calibrated mix of intelligence, naivete, rebelliousness, charisma and practicality produces an unforgettable protagonist; even Maria's recklessness seems reasonable because it's so clearly rooted in desperation.
70
The Hollywood Reporter
Duane Byrge
Ultimately, the ending is a bit of a cop-out, but that's a small criticism for a film with such decent perspectives.
70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
Grim but never gratuitous.
70
Variety
David Rooney
Writer-director Joshua Marston's strikingly confident debut maintains an unblinking focus and sustains an almost unbearable level of tension.
70
Dallas Observer
Jean Oppenheimer
Be forewarned: Scenes of the protagonist learning to swallow the drug pellets will make many viewers queasy. Rarely has the power of suggestion been so unsettling.
60
Empire
Angie Errigo
Not for anyone with a sensitive gag reflex. Joshua Marston provides a harrowing depiction of drug- muling for dummies. The raw, revolting, dangerous details of such an undertaking are graphic.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 53 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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