Matthew McConaughey having
lost about 40 pounds is almost unrecognizable – not the “hunk” that we are
familiar with from his other movies - but a scrawny, unlikable character in his
greatest role to-date, in a film he anchors with his presence and performance. DALLAS
BUYERS CLUB is a bio-docudrama directed
by Jean-Marc Vallée depicting the true story of Ron Woodroof, a drug addicted,
homophobic, sexist, racist, womanizer who will f-ck any ”pussy” he can lay
hands on in the free-wheeling rodeo cowboy arena he inhabits, who discovers to
his utter stupefaction that he has AIDS and is given a 30 day prognosis to live.
This movie addresses how HIV was contracted by diverse groups in the population
besides the LGBT community – through IV transfusions, heterosexual liaisons with
other infected persons, drug addicts using contaminated needles, etc. But the
focus of this film is the botched Federal response to this disease when the
urgency of time was critical. The
Government’s deliberativeness in approving experimental treatments hastened the
decimation of the lives of people who were dying prematurely. Kaposi's sarcoma erupting
on the flesh of the affected like stigmata run wild - outward symbols of what
was once seen by Ron Woodroof as the
contamination of “sexual deviants.”
The time is 1985 – the AIDS
epidemic is beginning to surface and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) as
well as doctors and other bureaucratic officials do not know how to deal with
what is slamming society with the mystery and uncontrollable ferocity of a
plague. The search for a cure involves the tried and true scientific method of
recruiting patients for experimental, blind studies using AZT vs. placeboes.
Woodroof, illegally obtains AZT and instead of getting better his condition
deteriorates. He is then determined to survive by whatever means necessary, and
begins to investigate other medical alternatives outside of the USA,
How Ron Woodroof becomes
business partners with a transvestite named Rayon (touchingly as well as
convincingly portrayed by Jared Leto) in a scheme to create “Buyers Clubs” with
memberships for those in desperate straits so they can purchase non-approved
medications imported from Mexico circumventing FDA laws, is at the “heart” of DALLAS
BUYERS CLUB. And of course speaking
of “heart” we witness Woodroof’s own transformation from his once rigidly held
bigoted perceptions to a reluctant acceptance of the “other.” What makes this
movie better than a feel-good “personal is the political,” morality tale is the
amazing performance of Matthew McConaughey. Here is an actor who knows how to
use bodily movement, underscoring the dialogue - resulting in a depiction of a
fully developed, compelling character. He struts, writhes, stumbles, almost becomes
acrobatic in tandem with his foul-mouthed, abject, and occasionally even
charming self.
Today, there are more than 35
antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) approved by the Food and Drug Administration to
treat HIV infection. These treatments do not cure people of HIV or AIDS.
Rather, they suppress the virus, even to undetectable levels, and life
expectancy rates have risen dramatically. Watching the movie I felt a
deep melancholia, reminiscing on the “accident” of time wishing that these ARV
drugs had been available when a dear beloved friend of mine hiccupped his way
to an untimely silence. In the 1980”s and mid-1990”s there was a feeling of
hopelessness – a death sentence from which there was little reprieve; this film
gives us an inkling of that futile and wretched era, and the determination of
courageous men and women to “hang on” despite harrowing, mostly fruitless
attempts to find remedies for this execrable disease.
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