Ryan McNeil
I hope I can be forgiven if I bring this review back to musical analogies. When discussing a film by director Jean-Marc Vallee, it’s difficult not to. Likewise, when discussing a story set in a music-rich city like Dallas, it’s also difficult not to. So with that disclaimer firmly stated, I’m reminded of that moment when you hear a new version of an old song. At first you might resist, thinking “This has been done”, but slowly you give yourself over to the tune…wondering why it’s been so long since you’ve heard it.
It’s 1985, and Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) lives hard. An electrician by day, Ron lives to ride, drink, gamble, and fuck. One day though, when an accident at work sends him to the hospital, he learns just how hard he has been living. Woodruff is diagnosed as HIV positive. It’s the 80’s: HIV is a death sentence. With doctors unable to explain how he contracted it, and with no treatment available, Ron gets very angry very quickly. Eventually, anger leads to clarity.
Ron realizes that the best way to fight his HIV virus might lay outside America’s borders. It’s then that he takes it upon himself to travel to Mexico in search of different – and non-FDA approved – treatment. When the treatments begin to work, the hustler Ron once was is reawakened. He sees a possibility: a possibility to live, to spread the word, and to make a lot of money.
As he begins to smuggle drugs and vitamins into The States, Woodruff launches The Dallas Buyers Club. He doesn’t sell the drugs, he sells memberships (which happen to come with drugs). However, a beer-drinkin’, coke-sniffin’, bull-ridin’ cowboy isn’t going to get far trying to find clientele amongst primarily homosexual AIDS patients. For that he strikes up an unlikely partnership with Rayon (Jared Leto), a transvestite he met during his initial stay in the hospital.
Slowly, by playing a game that breaks just about every rule in the book, Woodruff, Rayon, and scores of other Dallas AIDS patients begin to get a grip on their situation. They are still seeing so much death, and still keeping an eye out for the law. But by leaning on each other, the Dallas Buyers Club is able to get a modicum of control on a situation that was once spiralling well out of control.
As the first few notes of DALLAS BUYERS CLUB chime out, it may seem as though we’ve heard this song before. The AIDS Crisis has, of course, been covered in PHILADELPHIA, THE BAND PLAYED ON and ANGELS IN AMERICA. However, in the twenty years since those stories were made, something strange has happened: much of North America has forgotten what happened. We have forgotten that a disease that has no regard for sexual preference was first called “The Gay Plague”. We have forgotten that the disease struck such fear into the general public, that there were calls for those affected to have to wear outward identification. And we forget that the fight to get a handle on it was a complicated mess with no easy answers.
So yes, we’ve heard this song before…but it was so long ago that many won’t remember the words.
To remind us, Matthew McConaughey steps up to the mic and wows us with his chops. Looking spectacularly gaunt after losing nearly 40 pounds off his already slender frame, McConaughey finds the right mix of anger, charm, and humour to keep the audience rapt. He’s not the sort of hero we’re used to in a story like this – one who’s looking to buck the odds and fight the system. He’s a man who begins as a smartass and a hustler and ends as a smartass and a hustler. If there’s ever any doubt, one only need remind oneself that the first time Woodruff appears onscreen, he’s having sex under the rodeo bleachers. Give this part to any other actor, and Woodruff comes off as a dirty – albeit unlucky – hick. In the hands of McConaughey though…
There’s a wry humour that is never far from reach for McConaughey. Its evident in his interactions with Leto, and his interactions with Jennifer Garner as Dr Eve Saks. It usually comes with a smirk, whether its being used to ask the latter to dinner, or keep the flamboyance of the former in check. In a way, its reflected in Vallee’s direction of the film, a film he seldom lets get bogged down with melodrama. Take for instance a scene at the end of the first act where Woodruff seems to be praying for answers. It’s a moment we’ve seen many times before in many similar stories. As the camera pulls back though, Vallee shows us just where Woodruff is looking for answers, and we can help but fall for the audacity of the moment.
It’s that audacity that is at the core of DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. While it gives us a wonderful relationship with Woodruff and Rayon, it seldom pretends that it is one sparked from a place of love. The AIDS Crisis was a terrible thing, but this is still America – and money still talks. In a way that’s a good thing, because attitudes of people like Woodruff might only have been able to be changed through financial gain and pure necessity. As those angles come into play, AIDS becomes like a ringing in their ears. That ringing is a device Vallee uses often and well to illustrate the affect the virus is having on Woodruff, an affect than cannot be ignored.
In the end, the song that is sung is something textured, complicated, surprisingly joyous, and indeed life-affirming. While Vallee’s fingerprints aren’t as evident on this project as they are on films like C.R.A.Z.Y. or CAFE DE FLORE, he still finds the perfect tone for what would otherwise be a very syrupy. The film capitalizes on the McConaughey renaissance, leading to great amount of sadness, slyness, and smartassery. As the final chords chime out, we begin to wonder how we ever forgot such a beautiful song.
Great review! I hope this one comes to me soon.
I know it’s playing in MSP now, so it should be drifting your way soon!
Great review, Ryan! This is one of my most anticipated of the year…it comes out here on Friday! I think most people have a vague recolection of the AIDS crisis, but nothing really exposed me to the history quite like last year’s doc “How to Survive a Plague” …holy smokes. I hope this film gets the attention it deserves.
“Eventually, anger leads to clarity.” We all can relate to that fact.
Make sure you drop by after you watch it and let me know what you think.
I’ve actually been sent a screener, so I’ll likely be revisiting it sometime in the next few weeks…which is a good thing, since I had to jog my memory back to TIFF for this post!
If you liked that doc, look for one called WE WERE HERE, which is also pretty amazing.