Somehow the film “Dallas Buyers Club” slipped by my radar upon its release in November 2013. After premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie hit theatres shortly thereafter to relatively high box office numbers, though I never saw one preview on television. In fact, until its power showing at the 86th Academy Awards (where it was nominated for six Oscars and won three) I was completely unaware of it at all. Based on a true story, “Dallas Buyers Club” is a powerful film with phenomenal acting and writing, telling a story that the masses are no doubt unfamiliar with.
Matthew McConaughey, known more for his mimbo shenanigans as a shirtless tabloid fool, shares the big screen with method actor Jared Leto who, like Daniel Day Lewis, is highly selective about his roles. Leto is known more for his music as the front man of the band “30 Seconds to Mars” (who I urge you to check out) than for big screen Hollywood dominance. Both leads are nearly unrecognizable in the film, and both are deserving of the praise they reaped with McConaughey winning Best Actor and Leto winning Best Supporting Actor (a feat not accomplished since 2003’s “Mystic River”).
It’s Dallas in 1985, and with recent news breaking of the death of Hollywood star Rock Hudson, the AIDS epidemic is at its peak. In its infancy stages, the disease is still an enigma and the everyday ignorance of Texas just compounds it. Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) is a studly cowboy-type manly man (though noticeably gaunt and sickly) who works as an electrician and rodeo hand.
A seemingly benign trip to the hospital reveals Woodroof is HIV positive. Doctors (wearing protective masks out of sheer ignorance) advise Woodroof that he has only thirty days to live. Due to his assumption that only homosexuals and drug users get the disease, Woodroof blows off the situation until his health further deteriorates prompting a return to the hospital. “My lungs are bleeding, my skin is crawling, I got a f*ing jackhammer in my head.” He explains in understandable terror.
McConaughey does an unforgettable job (dropping forty-seven pounds for the role) and embarking on a life altering voyage, as a rugged womanizing character suddenly thrust into a world where he has no control and clearly thinks he does not belong. McConaughey brings Woodroof to life with an assortment of deep emotional scenes; from unbridled homophobic bigotry to pure emotional rage. In one relatable scene, Woodroof (while researching how the disease is passed) recalls a carnal dalliance with a drug user that prompts him to scream aloud in anger in a way that makes you fully understand his realization that it was one irreversible mistake that he can never go back on.
“Dallas Buyers Club” follows Woodroof as he deals with the discrimination that rooms with the disease – and the evils of the pharmaceutical industry (which is already easy to hate). “Screw the FDA,” he says when he is denied a drug that will relieve his pain, “I’m gonna be DOA.”
Woodroof educates himself and others about the disease as he seeks to help the afflicted by obtaining and selling an assortment of medicines and vitamins in an under-the-table way, with assistance coming from the unlikely sources of do-gooder young doctor Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner) and fellow HIV infected Rayon (Leto), a transgender homosexual. Jared Leto is simply phenomenal in the role of Rayon, losing over thirty pounds and remaining in character for twenty-five days. The two men play perfectly off one another as polar opposites in life, with the disease being their one unfortunate common ground.
The mystery of the disease that was embedded in the 1980s is exploited perfectly, with the characters demonstrating its stranglehold on culture, a handful of years before Magic Johnson brought it to prominence with his groundbreaking announcement. Woodroof’s refusal to die is something of great inspiration to anyone watching. As he tells Saks while storming out of the hospital “I prefer to die with my boots on.”
“Dallas Buyers Club” is the type of movie everyone should see. Be prepared for a highly emotional film with acting that will leave you truly amazed.
by – Matt Christopher
