Maria Full of Grace (María, llena eres de gracia) is a joint Colombia and American film from 2004.
Seventeen-year-old María works a thankless job at a flower plantation to help support her family when she learns she is pregnant. While she looks for a new job, a friend of a friend tells her about a money-making opportunity: all she has to is swallow pellets full of heroin, fly to New Jersey and make sure the pellets get to their intended destination. And avoid getting caught.
Tropes full of grace
- Affably Evil: Franklin introduces María to Don Javier. The soft-spoken, grandfather-looking man smiles as he explains what the job will consist of, emphasizing that she must keep things secret. He even gives María money before she accepts the job, no strings attached. But later, he makes it clear that if the drugs don't turn up or any go missing, her family will be killed.
- Armor-Piercing Question: After María tells her boyfriend Juan that she is pregnant, he proposes they marry and move to his house. But he acts dismissive when she asks him if he loves her. Maria forces him to be honest with himself. They break up shortly after:María: You're gonna marry someone you don't even love? Someone who doesn't love you?
- Blatant Lies:
- María tells her family she is off to the city of Chiquinquirá to work an office job when she is really flying to NYC as a drug mule.
- When questioned by U.S. Customs officers, María lies about where she is staying and having saved enough for her plane ticket and the cash she carries. She also denies swallowing drugs. The officers know she is lying but they let her go; they cannot take X-rays of her to refute her cover story due to her pregnancy.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: María is at the drugstore with her sister and mother, picking up medicine for her baby nephew. Maria is incensed when they demand she fork over the money, since she already contributes most of her wages to help the family.
- Due to the Dead: Wilson and Carlos retrieve the pellets from Lucy's body and dump her body. After María helps identify a body found by the police, she donates half of her earnings so that Lucy can be sent back to Colombia instead of being buried in an unmarked grave in New Jersey.
- Foreshadowing: María befriends Lucy, who has been a drug mule before. Lucy has María prepare for swallowing the drug pellets by practicing with whole grapes. She also warns Maria to dress nicely but nothing flashy, to avoid eating for 24 hours before the trip, and to make sure the pellets are carefully wrapped, because if one ruptures while inside María, she will die. This is exactly what happens to Lucy herself later on.
- Justified Criminal: María and Blanca jump at the chance of making $5000 USD for going off as drug mules:
- Maria just quit her awful job and doesn't have another lined up. She is pregnant and she has no intention of marrying her child's father (neither loves the other one). Her Struggling Single Mother sister lives at home, so she has a good picture of her future.
- Blanca figures that with the exchange rate into Colombian currency the money will be enough to buy a house for her family.
- Killed Offscreen: Lucy, after one of the pellets inside her ruptures and she ODS. The dealers end up cutting her open to retrieve the remaining pellets.
- Mean Boss: María is dealing with morning sickness. When she asks the supervisor for another bathroom break, he just harangues her about how far behind she is. When she throws up on her flowers, instead of asking if she is OK, he just makes her rinse them off even though they are ruined, then sends her back to work, telling her he will be deducting the cost from her paycheck.
- Oh, Crap!:
- When María gets stopped by the Customs officer at the airport.
- María wakes up in the middle of the night and hears the dealers trying to leave quietly while carrying Lucy. When María goes to the bathroom and sees the blood-spattered tub, she realizes the dealers cut Lucy open to retrieve the pellets still inside her and are somewhere dumping the body.
- The Resenter: María is only 17 but she already works to help support the family. She does not appreciate being lectured on responsibility by her Struggling Single Mother sister, who is unemployed. As María points out, her sister's baby is her responsibility, not María's.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: María realizes that the dealers cut Lucy open to retrieve the pellets still inside of her and will return after they dump the body. In a panic, she immediately wakes up Blanca and both of them get the hell out.
- Shame If Something Happened: Don Javier is a smiling middle-aged man with a cane. He does not look like he would be involved in drug trafficking. But before Maria goes to the airport, he tells her what is at stake:Don Javier: One more thing... If any of what you are carrying gets lost along the way or doesn't show up, we'll go and have a little conversation with your grandmother, your mother, your sister, and little Pachito. We know exactly how much each one of those 62 pellets weighs. Understood?
- Take This Job and Shove It: It occurs offscreen, but Maria quits her job when her boss denies her a bathroom break and she ends up vomiting all over her workstation. It does not help that he does not show concern for her welfare.
- Unusual Euphemism: Maria is offered a one-time gig as a drug mule. The way Franklin, the "recruiter" describes the situation, she is going to take a trip to New Jersey with a bunch of "film rolls", be picked up and taken to a safe location where "the films will be developed" i.e. they will wait out for her to pass the heroin-filled pellets she swallowed. All 62 of them.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: While Maria is at her job, her supervisor denies her permission to go to the bathroom yet again, as she is falling behind. Just then, she throws up all over the flowers she is working with.
- Wham Line: "I don't feel well." Lucy to María during the flight.
- Wham Shot: María enters the hotel room bathroom and finds the bathtub covered in Lucy's blood.
