When we first meet Maria, played in a captivating and compelling performance by newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno, she is working a hard job in a flower factory. Her heartless boss won't give her the frequent bathroom breaks that she needs. Like her sister, she is soon to become an unmarried, teenage mother, but Maria isn't telling anyone of her difficulty. Her mother and her sister expect Maria to be the family's sole breadwinner so they are angry with her when she quits her job on the assembly line, trimming flowers.

Maria's boyfriend, who won't tell her that he loves her, says he's willing to marry her, but it is not a serious offer, so, when a chance to make big money in drugs comes her way, she takes it. Her training consists of learning to swallow very large grapes whole. Her real assignment, however, proves much more challenging. She has to swallow sixty to seventy large capsules, about one-and-a-half inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide. When she loses a few in flight, she has to wash them off, coat them with toothpaste and gulp them back down. She is surprised to recognize several of her fellow mules on board. Multiple young women are sent so that, if one is caught, the others will get through. The story's harrowing last act involves the purgatory she finds herself in after she lands in New York.

In a bit of touching irony, the last scene contains a distant billboard slogan of "It's What's Inside That Counts." And, for drug mules, it's also what can kill them.

MARIA FULL OF GRACE runs 1:41. The film is in English and in Spanish with English subtitles. It is rated R for "drug content and language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.