Cameron's Take: Cameron is a guest reviewer filling in for Cady this week...

Maria Full of Grace is a movie about drugs and drug trafficking, but it is a real movie about drugs and drug trafficking, not the Hollywood version. There are no high speed car chases, no gun fights, and no hot shot detective making it his lives mission to bring down the flashy king pin who is living the high life off of his illegally earned fortune. Instead the viewer is given a glimpse into the lowest level drug smugglers’ motives and the “bad guys” who facilitate their business using anyone desperate enough to work for them.

Not everything is black and white. Maria Full of Grace reinforces this truth with brilliant simplicity and heartfelt realism. Seventeen-year-old Maria Alvarez is the character at the center of this story and is portrayed flawlessly by Catalina Sandino Moreno, who received a best actresses Oscar nomination for the role, spoken entirely in Spanish. The movie opens with Maria working in a factory stripping thorns off of roses. After being humiliated by her boss Maria quits her job, leaving her family in a precarious situation. Desperate for work, but too proud to go back to the factory, Maria heads to the city to find work as a maid, but a simple twist of fate presents Maria with another option and her story unfolds from here.

Her naïve innocence is what endures Maria to the audience despite her poor decision making, and her intelligence and courage keep us rooting for her as she finds her self entrenched in the dark world of drug smuggling, pregnant and on her way to the United States with a belly full of heroin. The film has a very intimate feel, yet first time filmmaker Joshua Maston keeps the plot moving with twists and turns. In a really strange way this movie puts you on the edge of your seat, even though the overall feel of the film is calm and serene.

This is not your fun Friday night date movie by any means; in Spanish (subtitled in English) you certainly have to be in the mood to pay close attention for 1 hour and 40 minutes, but rent this movie and you will not be disappointed. As raw as it is beautiful Maria Full of Grace is an absolute must see for fans of dramatic cinema.

There is no greater joy than discovering a really, really good foreign film. I know there is that subsection of movie-goers who hate to think, and only watch movies for entertainment. If it's too much work, they say no thanks. Well let me tell you guys something - you are really missing out on some terrific pieces of art. I was so afraid that "Maria" would not deliver because I was so looking forward to seeing this movie for so long and that generally signals a bad review, because I end up disappointed. Not so with this film, notable most of all for the amazing performance of the title character by Catalina Sandino Moreno.

I concur wholeheartedly with so much of Cameron's review, that I'll just touch on a few things here. Intimacy. Yes, this movie is intimate - we know these characters immediately but they are not stereotypes or charicatures. We do not want to know what happens to Maria, we need to know. Second, the concept of "real". I felt like Maria was making these decisions as I watched her, and I feel now that if I watched the movie again her decisions would be just as organic.

I want to say that this is the perfect movie to cut your teeth on if you are not a foreign film fan. We Americans spend so much time in the Hollywood cinematic frame of mind that we completely forget that there are other stories to see and to learn from. I do not think that watching a movie that is under two hours with subtitles is really THAT ambitious...try something new! The worst that could happen is that you won't like it as much as you thought you wouldn't and the best is that you could discover an entirely new genre of films you can enjoy.