A young Colombian woman tries to escape a dead-end life by becoming a mule for drug smugglers. It is a harrowing way to make your way out of poverty, and an equally difficult way of discovering that you are a better person than you think you are. But the heart-breakingly beautiful Catalina Sandino Moreno as the title character is up for the task. Her performance goes beyond art to artlessness — this is acting as behavior — and is emblematic of writer-director Joshua Marston's straightforward, unsentimental tale moving from darkness into the light of... well, yes, goodness and grace.
Come fly with us, and Leo, through the best (and worst) of 2004. Tops in the cinema this year include Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Elsewhere, Deadwood was good TV, and a Strange tale fascinated readers.