Movie review: Dallas Buyers Club - hope for sale

Welcome to the Dallas Buyers Club — we have drugs, desperation, death and determination to spare.

Dallas Buyers Club, at a cursory glance, is a film about the HIV/AIDs epidemic that spread through the United States in the mid ’80s. For all those who might be deterred by such a heavy and preachy subject matter, it’s crucial to know that the movie is not a story on disease — not in the literal sense at least. The real plague at the centre of this film is ignorance, homophobia and fear associated with the very word ‘HIV’. What follows is ostracisation and hardships, inflicted on those who suffer from it.

The lead characters in this movie don’t just take on the virus that is slowly eating away at their bodies, but also the prejudices and ridicule that they face from those who were once their peers. Alongside this is the opposition from regulating authorities such as the FDA and pharmaceutical companies that are peddling whatever toxic drug will reap them the largest profit, as their cure of choice.

Matthew McConaughey is, in one word, irreplaceable as the lead actor Ron Woodroof. This becomes apparent barely fifteen minutes into the film as no other actor could have shouldered this role better. It’s not his 47-pound weight loss that is most striking, but the fact that McConaughey disappears completely into Woodroof. There is almost no acting involved. There is just truth and a heartbreaking and poignant one at that.

Woodroof’s Buyers Club is a motley crew of HIV sufferers from all walks of life, who are just looking for a way to prolong their existence. With the government against them, along with hospitals and research companies, Woodroof is forced to find creative ways to smuggle life-sustaining antiviral drugs into the country and exploit legal loopholes to allow those in need to access them. For a monthly membership fee, anyone can join the Dallas Buyers Club, and receive the drugs that they need, free of charge. It’s a brilliant ploy, but grows increasingly desperate as the FDA begins to crackdown on what they consider to be a drug smuggling racket.

Jared Leto is a revelation as the feisty, street savvy and resilient Rayon, Woodroof’s second-in-command. Those who have followed Leto’s career closely will know that the actor always had acting prowess to spare (Requiem for a Dream, Lord of War, Mr Nobody), but in this once-in-a-lifetime role of a transgender who is HIV positive, he comes across as nothing short of magnificent. While Leto does provide the few and far between light-hearted moments of the otherwise dramatic film, he does so without ever becoming a caricature of the LGBT community. Rayon is the beautiful, feminine spark at the heart of the film, and the catalyst that gave Woodroof the courage to start the club. And he might as well be the only nominee in this year’s race for the Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars.

At its most basic level, Dallas Buyers Club is a compelling film about transformation — the transformation of a healthy cell into a sick one, of a woman trapped inside a man’s body, of a bigoted, racist, redneck cowboy into a desperate man, and of 30 days into six years that Woodroof spends defying the odds. It is a beautifully subtle story of one man’s retribution, one that will linger in the mind of the viewer long after the credits have finished rolling.

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Zinnia Bukhari heads the life and style desk at The Express Tribune. She tweets @ZinniaBukhari 

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 9^th,  2014.