The film Dallas Buyers Club tells the true story of Ron Woodroof, a Texas rodeo enthusiast, electrician, and occasional con man adapting to a shocking HIV diagnosis in 1980s Texas, where the disease and its sufferers were shrouded in confusion, homophobia, and hopelessness.
The Best Picture nominee has been a film over 20 years in the making. Screenwriter Craig Borten spent hours interviewing Woodroof prior to the AIDS victim’s death in 1992. The film had several false starts, as the bleak, difficult subject matter put off financiers. Borten found the constant rejection pushing him into self-destructive behaviors. Even after the project was finally green-lit, it nearly came to a screeching halt when financing fell through just seven weeks before filming began.
In the end, enough money came through to create a stirring film, driven by stellar acting and a surprising, touching friendship between two people seemingly as different as night and day.
Woodroof, played by Matthew McConaughey, struggles not only with the physical ravages of HIV and AIDS, but also with the paranoia and prejudice exhibited toward AIDS sufferers. There are the fears and misunderstandings of how HIV is contracted: even Woodroof’s so-called friends didn’t want to get too close to him, for fear they may contract the disease as well. Plus, there is the misconception that to have acquired HIV, Woodroof must be gay — an unacceptable condition in Woodroof’s “macho” circle. His friends all turn their backs on him when he needs them most.
Much of the buzz around Dallas Buys Club concerns McConaughey’s performance as Woodroof. With this role, McConaughey attempts to step out of the shadow of the stereotypical goofy, stoner characters he has been typecast into and take on a much more serious and dramatic role.
McConaughey dove in with such dedication that he lost more than 40 pounds for the movie. His appearance is so skeletal, he’s nearly unrecognizable; only his voice is distinctly his. The way his skin clings to his body makes him look almost mummified. The physical transformation makes it easy to set aside any preconceived notions you may have about McConaughey himself and just see the character.
What many people have forgotten over the last few years, as McConaughey has taken on more and more chick-flick roles and become the brunt of many jokes in Hollywood, is that the man actually has talent. The problem is that talent is all too often squandered on films like Failure to Launch and Magic Mike (in which he coincidentally plays a character named Dallas). But every so often, McConaughey puts on a performance like this one that reminds everyone how good he can be.
As Woodruff defiantly resists treatment for his illness, he finds himself rushed to the hospital, where he shares a room with Rayon, a transgendered AIDS patient. Rayon is a composite character, distilled from a number of individuals the real-life Woodruff came to know. Rayon is played by Jared Leto, the Thirty Seconds to Mars front man, who is brilliant in his first film role in four years.
Rayon, who identifies as a woman, helps balance out and smooth over some of Woodroof’s rough edges. She is a perfect foil for Woodroof, and it’s through Rayon that Woodroof begins to let go of the bigotry he harbored before being diagnosed with HIV. One of the best aspects of this film is watching the friendship that develops between Woodroof and Rayon. Woodroof starts out as a homophobic cowboy with all the same prejudices as his friends, but ultimately Rayon becomes the only true friend he has.
As the HIV/AIDS pandemic exploded in the 1980s, unauthorized “buyers clubs” opened across the United States to provide experimental and alternative treatments for the symptoms of a disease that was poorly understood and often willfully ignored because of its association with so-called immoral behaviors. Before long, Woodruff and Rayon form a partnership to open a buyers club of their own to sell medications to other AIDS patients.
In doing so, Woodroof raises the ire of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A drug called azidothymidine (AZT) was fast-tracked through the testing process and given FDA approval. AZT was then administered in high doses, which damaged patients as frequently as it helped them. Eve, another composite character, is a crusading doctor at the hospital where Woodruff and Rayon are treated. Eve’s loyalties lie with treating her patients, occasionally bringing her into conflict with hospital administrators and Big Pharma.
Despite the potential for the character, Jennifer Garner is underwhelming in the role of Eve. Compared to the other Oscar-worthy performances in this film, Garner’s effort felt stiff and somewhat awkward. Despite having worked with McConaughey previously, there didn’t seem to be as much chemistry there as one would have expected. Garner is a decent actress; however, she doesn’t seem to have the range of her contemporaries. Quite often, her characters blend together and it feel like she’s always playing the same role.
Leto and McConaughey’s fantastic performances, though, made up for any shortfalls with the rest of the cast. Yet there still seemed to be something lacking in the telling of this story. The filmmakers’ financial struggles forced them to sacrifice some shooting locations and lighting to save money. Director Jean-Marc VallÇe said this may have worked out better, as it ended up being more in the spirit of the characters. Nonetheless, the film felt rough or uneven at times; it was hard to tell how much of this was an intentional choice and how much was a result of the sacrifices that had to be made.
In the end, though, the cinematic inconsistencies within the film do not detract from the overall plot and the performances of its lead actors. Dallas Buyers Club is the fascinating story of one man’s refusal to die quietly and of his determination to fight for the right to use whatever drugs he saw fit to keep himself alive.