This debut feature film by Joshua Marston tells the suspenseful and absorbing story of Maria, a poor, pregnant Colombian teenager (Catalina Sandina Moreno) with a soul-crushing job at a flower plantation and a rebellious streak. Her multigenerational, all-female family relies too much on her as the principle breadwinner, squandering her earnings on medicines of questionable value for her sister's baby. This drives Maria to quit, dump her immature boyfriend, and go to Bogota where she tumbles into work as a drug mule. Like thousands of real-life Colombians, she earns money by flying to New York City with up to a kilogram of tightly wrapped heroin pellets in her stomach, risking prison or worse.