Maria Full of Grace (2004)

Premise: Maria (Catalina Sardino Moreno) takes a job trafficking cocaine from Columbia to New York through her digestive system after she discovers she is pregnant. Her best friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) decides to join up to, and Maria makes friends with Lucy (Guilied Lopez), another mule, who puts her in contact with her sister, Carla (Patricia Rae).

Yeah, I struggled with how much I was giving away there, but Maria throws up pretty early in the movie. As you well know, no one just gets the flu or food poisoning in a movie, so it's pretty easy to figure out what's up at that point.

Oh, fine, we'll go over this really quickly. If a character throws up in a movie, it means one of the following three things:
a) She is pregnant.
b) S/he has cancer/is responding to their cancer treatment.
c) S/he is hung over/just drank way too much.

Any other reasons? Give me a shout out if you think of something.

Moving right along. Let's all give our props to Joshua Marston (writer-director) for his tense and brilliant sophomore offering. How does a Californian man know so much about the Columbian drug industry? I don't know. Call it research, call it a work of pure fiction. Don't care - it was lovingly crafted, beautifully framed, and seamlessly told.

Much of this can be credited to his pitch perfect leading lady. Moreno, only just shy of 23, has never done anything else if IMDb is to be believed. Nothing at all. Maria was supposed to be one of those head-strong, stubborn, singularly beautiful types who always gets herself into trouble because of her chronic inability to rely on anyone other than herself. But in Moreno's hands she was so much more. Not once did I feel like chastising her. Instead, I was struck by how stupid and mean all the other people she had to put up with were.

Consider Blanca, for example. Blanca had no reason to quit her job at the flower plantation. Blanca had no reason to suddenly need a lot of money. Blanca had no particular personality beyond dumb, whiny brat. Above all, she possessed the kind of jealousy that only a best friend can possess in the face of one who is clearly bigger and better than the former ever thinks she will be.

I kept waiting and hoping for the moment when Maria would just reel back and slap her stupid face anyway.

Normally I find this sort of juxtaposition grating and trite, but Moreno and Vega make it work. Mostly Moreno. She is such a rarity that I could have watched her do pretty much anything.

Including waiting for her bowels to pass. Yup, this movie involves watching her swallow cocaine pellets and crapping them out. And it was worth seeing. She's that good.

I know I already made my list top ten for last year, but I'd likely bump one of them for this gem. If I had only known. A+