DALLAS BUYERS CLUB
Cast:
Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Steve Zahn, Denis O’Hare
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
117 mins.
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
117 mins.
In 1985, doctors informed Ron Woodroof, when he ended up in hospital, that he had been tested positive for HIV – and gave him thirty days to live. Ron, reluctant to relinquish his zestful lust for life, refused to follow the doctors’ advice to get his affairs in order before the month was up – and survived a further seven years.
Woodroof’s story inspires the compelling drama Dallas Buyers Club and features Matthew McConaughey in yet another remarkable performance (following astonishing turns in both Killer Joe and Mud) as the cowboyish Woodroof. Directed by Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée, this is an inspiring dramatisation of Woodroof’s fight - not only to stay alive - but to treat and better the lives of his fellow patients with HIV/AIDS. Woodroof’s ongoing battles for the rights of the infected members of the community is especially surprising because he detests many of them due to the homophobic biases and prejudices he harbours at the beginning of the film.
Ron - a hot-blooded bigoted Texan, is like many people in the early days of AIDS. He assumes it is just a “gay disease.” It must be a gross error, he thinks, when the doctors pronounce the result of his blood test, and despite the fact that this hard-drinking, promiscuous man looks so haggard and emaciated that he physically appears to be dying - he won't accept the diagnosis. He assumes he can’t have HIV because such an illness would betray his macho masculinity, so off he embarks on a bender of denial - consuming booze, coke, and whatever else he can lay his emaciated hands on – continuing his naive lack of acceptance that this will deteriorate his immune system and morph his HIV into full-blown AIDS.
When he finally comes to terms with the diagnosis and makes a conscious decision that he’s not yet ready for the graveyard, Ron pleads with Eve (Jennifer Garner), the more compassionate of his two doctors, to put him on the trial session of the anti-viral AZT (Azidothymidine) – but when the hospital refuses his request, he hightails it to Mexico to score some drugs. In Mexico, Ron finds all kinds of remedies, thanks to the help of an unlicenced Mexican doctor (Griffin Dunne) that can better his health far more that the trial drugs in America can. These helpful prescriptions however aren’t available in the United States because they’re simply not Food & Drug Administration (FDA)-approved.
Woodroof becomes a true cowboy when he recognises that other AIDS patients need the care that the American hospitals, drug companies, and bureaucrats are withholding. People are willing to pay to live, as Ron finds out rather easily when he brings drugs by the bucket load into America and devises a business in which HIV/AIDS patients can purchase memberships and receive all the medication they need. The Dallas Buyers Club is born from the mind of this unlikeliest of AIDS champions. He finds an unexpected ally to increase the membership of the Dallas Buyers Club when a fellow patient named Rayon, (a quite superb performance by an almost unrecognisable Jared Leto), who convinces Ron to cut him in on the deal in exchange for clients. The sassy transsexual Rayon probably wouldn’t have been acknowledged by the earlier Ron of the first few scenes of the film, although he may have hurled a weighted insult or two in his direction. They’re quite an unlikely pairing - Ron and Rayon: the bigoted outlaw and the flamboyant femme.
The partnership with Rayon brings Ron face to face with the
narrow-mindedness engulfing the AIDS pandemic. Ostracised by his own friends
when they learn that he has AIDS, Ron experiences the senseless, pack- mentality
prejudice that hinders the action required to combat the disease. The film
shows Ron undergoing a form of spiritual healing and emotional intelligence
epiphany as he and Rayon give the AIDS community some grassroots prescriptions.
Working amongst the members of a community with which he would never have associated previously, the film shows that some of the hurdles towards treating AIDS were (and to some extent still are) socially constructed barriers created by ill-informed bias and poor education on the transmission of the disease.
The film is an endearingly personal, humanist portrait of both an individual's and a collective's impact on AIDS activism. Ron’s evolution throughout the film introduces several characters who represent friends and foes - such as a cranky doctor (Denis O’Hare) who ignores the improvement that members of the Dallas Buyers Club see while taking the unapproved medication whilst his colleague, Eve acknowledges that the hospital’s patients on AZT are not doing nearly as well as those in the care of the Dallas Buyers Club.
The piece offers a compelling and ultimately inspiring dramatisation of a troubling chapter of recent history. The film underscores the fact that patients with HIV/AIDS suffered a peculiar symptom of being a pawn in the business of health care (sic) in America, where questions of profit outweighed the benefits of treating the sick and infirm. Sufferers are either unable to afford the price it costs to live, or are required to find alternative channels and procure the viable treatments on their own and risk punishment for accessing unapproved medication that will help keep them alive. This film underscores how senseless bureaucracy prevents institutions from treating the very people they exist to serve, but the gripping intimacy of Dallas Buyers Club does the subject greater justice.
Vallée’s work achieves the commendable feat of honouring both the individuals portrayed in DBC and the larger community implicated in the story of the film. The director offers something which demonstrates formal restraint in both the subject matter - and in the refreshing, intimate, and urgent handheld cinematography - especially in the intricate, dynamic, and energetic editing. The montage of Ron’s nightmarish bender is a haunting accomplishment for conveying both the character’s despair and denial.
Dallas Buyers Club is ultimately McConaughey’s acting showpiece - but the power of the film resides in the strength of the ensemble. In the lead role McConaughey offers his greatest turn yet in what has been a recent hot streak of brave, challenging roles. His performance as Ron has a roguish charm and charisma that suits the macho cowboy in his unwieldy stages, but he also makes Ron’s character arc both convincing and captivating as he draws out the humanity that’s brought to the surface when Woodroof’s lust for life is given an expiry date. Jared Leto gives a magnetic performance as Rayon, immersing himself completely in his character’s chameleon charm.
Both actors undergo quite astonishing physical transformations for their roles and bring to Dallas Buyers Club an equal agility at honouring the subjects of the film. The spirit of the performances gives this a life force seen all too rarely on screen.
Working amongst the members of a community with which he would never have associated previously, the film shows that some of the hurdles towards treating AIDS were (and to some extent still are) socially constructed barriers created by ill-informed bias and poor education on the transmission of the disease.
The film is an endearingly personal, humanist portrait of both an individual's and a collective's impact on AIDS activism. Ron’s evolution throughout the film introduces several characters who represent friends and foes - such as a cranky doctor (Denis O’Hare) who ignores the improvement that members of the Dallas Buyers Club see while taking the unapproved medication whilst his colleague, Eve acknowledges that the hospital’s patients on AZT are not doing nearly as well as those in the care of the Dallas Buyers Club.
The piece offers a compelling and ultimately inspiring dramatisation of a troubling chapter of recent history. The film underscores the fact that patients with HIV/AIDS suffered a peculiar symptom of being a pawn in the business of health care (sic) in America, where questions of profit outweighed the benefits of treating the sick and infirm. Sufferers are either unable to afford the price it costs to live, or are required to find alternative channels and procure the viable treatments on their own and risk punishment for accessing unapproved medication that will help keep them alive. This film underscores how senseless bureaucracy prevents institutions from treating the very people they exist to serve, but the gripping intimacy of Dallas Buyers Club does the subject greater justice.
Vallée’s work achieves the commendable feat of honouring both the individuals portrayed in DBC and the larger community implicated in the story of the film. The director offers something which demonstrates formal restraint in both the subject matter - and in the refreshing, intimate, and urgent handheld cinematography - especially in the intricate, dynamic, and energetic editing. The montage of Ron’s nightmarish bender is a haunting accomplishment for conveying both the character’s despair and denial.
Dallas Buyers Club is ultimately McConaughey’s acting showpiece - but the power of the film resides in the strength of the ensemble. In the lead role McConaughey offers his greatest turn yet in what has been a recent hot streak of brave, challenging roles. His performance as Ron has a roguish charm and charisma that suits the macho cowboy in his unwieldy stages, but he also makes Ron’s character arc both convincing and captivating as he draws out the humanity that’s brought to the surface when Woodroof’s lust for life is given an expiry date. Jared Leto gives a magnetic performance as Rayon, immersing himself completely in his character’s chameleon charm.
Both actors undergo quite astonishing physical transformations for their roles and bring to Dallas Buyers Club an equal agility at honouring the subjects of the film. The spirit of the performances gives this a life force seen all too rarely on screen.
