Hello Write Readers,
This Oscar season, we’re seeing some repeats: biographies, controversial topics/minority subject representation, and Matthew McConaughey. In fact, Dallas Buyers Club manages to be all three at once! It combines a true story, HIV/AIDS, and you guessed it- Mr. McConaughey and his all-important costar, Matthew McConaughey’s facial hair. That mustache is just amazing. It needs a film of its own.
Due to this golden trifecta (perhaps a quartet, since we’re talking about how great that mustache is), I’d say Dallas Buyers Club is a strong contender for the throne, and it’s nominated for a vast cadre of other categories including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Original Screenplay. Dallas Buyers Club is a story about Ron Woodroof, an electrician and rodeo cowboy stunned by his diagnosis of HIV. He is given 30 days to live. With little time and less AZT legally available to him, he goes in search of medications that will help to keep him alive. When he finds them, and an alternative lifestyle in Mexico, he goes about bringing medication with him into the United States, to use and to sell. Eventually he ends up going up against the FDA and modern medicine as they knew it, in order to live the longest and healthiest life he possibly can.
Dallas Buyers Club, my friends, is absolutely fantastic. As you know, I don’t enjoy sad movies, so I went into this film with a heavy heart, expecting the worst. I was practically crying during the previews. And I watched this right after Captain Phillips…I was ready for a dark day. Luckily, I was most pleasantly surprised.
This isn’t a film about death, and it’s not a film about dying- it’s a film about living.
Matthew McConaughey does an incredible job of bringing Ron Woodroof to life. Watching Woodroof struggle for survival in the only way he knows how, by giving “the man” the finger, is all at once hilarious, and tragic. He is the perfect 80’s citizen of Dallas, with his rough-and-tumble outlook on life, rampant drug habit, promiscuous behavior, and intense hatred and fear of homosexuals. As he moves through the film, we see him evolve, becoming the absolute best version of himself. He’ll never be a nice guy, but he becomes a good guy. It’s thrilling to not see him suddenly wake up one morning and realize how wrong he’s been about everything. This is no cliché Hollywood flick. Instead, he sees the truth of who he is and what his life is, and begins swinging at it, daring it to come any closer. And when Ron finally arrives at his role as the good guy and protagonist of the film, it’s with nonchalance and a few choice swear words. I can’t commend McConaughey any more for his beautiful portrayal of an intensely complex character. Jared Leto plays Rayon, an HIV-positive transgender woman, who becomes the closest friend Woodroof has, and his partner-in-crime, aka partner-in-living-and-helping-other-people-to-live-too. There really aren’t any words that could adequately describe the incredible job Leto did with this role. I can’t speak personally, but I believe Leto gave us an honest depiction of what it must have been like in the 80’s for someone like Rayon. She is sassy, beautiful, strong and yet entirely vulnerable. She looks at hatred every single day, and refuses to cower. She could be bitter, but instead she chooses to lift her fabulous head high and walk forward. I think Leto deserves any and all the awards he’s been nominated for, 1000 times over.
You might have noticed that I haven’t yet mentioned Jennifer Garner, who plays Dr. Saks, the doctor who begins to have doubts about the effectiveness of AZT. This is because she doesn’t really add much to the film. Initially a love interest for Woodroof, they settle into a beautiful yet unlikely friendship. I can’t say that Garner’s performance is particularly memorable, but it’s hard to imagine it would be when compared to the dual powerhouses of Leto and McConaughey, who both delivered in my opinion a career best performance. However, Garner’s presence in the film doesn’t detract anything, and provides a solid, stoic straight-(wo)man for McConaughey to play against. The chemistry between them is exactly as it should be, with the good doctor completely unable and mostly unwilling to return any of Woodroof’s sexual advances.
Dallas Buyers Club is a gem of a film. Although I’ve enjoyed all of the nominees that I’ve seen thus far, this is a film I can say I’ve absolutely loved, from beginning to end. I shed remarkably few tears (a first for me, I assure you) and left with a glorious sense of what it means to live the best version of life ever.
Live, Love, Learn,