When I first saw the trailer for “Dallas Buyers Club,” I was delighted to see Matthew McConaughey in a dramatic follow up to his mesmerizing performance in last year’s “Mud.” Add Jared Leto in his first movie role since 2006 and I was hooked. By the end of the first scene – a disorienting, drug-addled look at McConaughey – I knew that the film had capitalized on the promo’s excellent promise.
“Dallas Buyers Club” is based on the life of Ron Woodroof (McConaughey), a racist, homophobic rodeo cowboy who snorts cocaine when he’s not hustling other rodeo stars. After a freak accident sends him to the hospital, Ron wakes up to a positive HIV test. The doctors, played by Denis O’Hare and Jennifer Garner in her best role since “Alias,” give him 30 days to live. Woodroof, desperate for a cure, turns to unauthorized, cheaper drugs in Mexico and Japan to slow the effects of his disease and to help other AIDS victims. His actions quickly entangle him in the snares of the FDA.
McConaughey takes Ron through a humanizing transformation in the movie’s two-hour run. At first, Ron seems nothing like a hero; he’s prejudiced, crass and reckless. But out of necessity, he enlists Rayon (Leto), a transgender woman with AIDS, to help his operation. Interacting with the target of his prejudice forces Ron to understand the wrongness of his ways.
At times, I found Ron and Rayon’s relationship difficult to believe. Ron refuses to believe his diagnosis despite barely being able to stand because of his homophobia. Then, he takes to Rayon in the span of a few scenes. Director Jean-Marc Vallée rushes Ron’s transition from outspoken bigot to champion of the disenfranchised. Though it suffers from a clunky execution and an obvious exposition of character development, Ron and Rayon’s relationship is nonetheless affecting and memorable.
Even more emotional are Ron’s moments of despair. When he’s researching the ill-understood virus, he slams the table in fury once he realizes at last that his drug use and sexual activities have doomed him. Ron proves himself to be a good person underneath his rough exterior, like when he braves the bigoted trailer park where he lives just to get a painting his mother made for him. In moments like that, it’s impossible not to empathize with Ron. This is the performance of McConaughey’s career.
I expected Leto to steal the show based upon his stunning portrayal of a drug addict in “Requiem for a Dream,” and while his acting is indelible, McConaughey nevertheless overshadows him. Leto’s scenes offer both light-hearted laughs and devastating hopelessness; in one scene, Rayon must beg his estranged father for money. His performance is Oscar-bait for sure. But it’s McConaughey’s tortured portrayal of Ron that stuck with me long after driving home from the theater.
Director of the acclaimed “The Young Victoria,” Vallée adds another excellent entry to his resume. He uses a mind-numbing ringing in scenes where Ron falls ill. The outcome is both jarring and emotional. Vallée also never forces “Dallas Buyers Club” to take a stance on Ron as a charitable donor to the sick and ostracized AIDS victims, nor as a hustling outlaw who views the buyers club as an economic goldmine. Instead, Ron emerges as both men. Vallée avoids sentimentality for his doomed protagonist; he boldly presents Ron as a flawed man who, even as he tries to reform his flaws, trips up on old habits.
This realistic, humble depiction is made more impressive since it lies in the wake of Walter White’s odyssey in “Breaking Bad.” A similar “Heisenberg” caricature would have been an easy, appealing sell to audiences. Despite the similarities between Ron and Walter, Vallée never tries to make Ron more than he is: a man trying to make ends meet before he dies. Through Vallée’s convincing portrait, we empathize with Ron far more than we would with an outlandish retelling of his adventure.
The film effectively establishes the mindset of the 1980s. The country’s homophobic attitudes underlying the AIDS scare emerge suddenly when the characters express disgust over actor Rock Hudson’s diagnosis. That disgust projects onto Ron once his friends discover that he has the virus. When he returns to their bar, his friend are repelled by him like opposing magnets. For them, Woodroof is a walking contamination.
If for nothing else, the movie serves as the official announcement of McConaughey as a certified A-list name. Following a decade of subpar rom-coms and cheesy action flicks, he has cemented an improbable 180. But the movie also features several other career-best performances, namely Leto’s and Garner’s. It’s a crash course in the history of a horrible disease. It’s an elegy for the real Woodruff. But the most captivating part of “Dallas Buyers Club” will always be its doomed protagonist, a man who refuses to go gentle into that good night.
Alex Frail can be reached at [email protected].
