It's been a while since a movie moved me enough to post about it on here.  But today Mom convinced me to watch Maria Full of Grace, a film she'd seen before.  I knew it was about drug trafficking, and that it made Mom and Leah cry, so I wasn't too excited about seeing it.  

But I'm definitely glad I saw it.  It told this story that could easily have been sensationalized, or sappy, but it just told it very straightforward, with a completely real performance by the lead actress, Catalina Sandino Moreno.  As Mom said, her performance is so natural and powerful that you feel like she's your friend, or one of your ESL students, and you just hope that everything turns out all right for her.