The Dallas Buyers Club

 

The story of Texas electrician Ron Woodroof and his battle with the medical establishment and pharmaceutical companies after being diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1986, and his search for alternative treatments that helped establish a way in which fellow HIV-positive people could join for access to his supplies.     - Written by Focus Features

 

 Rated R   - 117 minutes 

You may not know much about "The Dallas Buyers Club", but I bet you remember seeing this:

 

Matthew McConaughey's dramatic weight loss for his role in this movie was only one example of how far he will go.  When McConaughey takes on a role, he lives it, breathes it, becomes it.  He was so believable in this movie, I call it his "role of a lifetime."

I say the same for Mr. Jared Leto - who so convincingly played AIDS patient "Rayon", it took several scenes before I realized it was him:

 

 

 On The Red Carpet "Dallas Buyers Club"

 

The official trailer for The Dallas Buyers Club:

The physical transformation of Woodroof is not the biggest transformation.   What really resonated with me was the emotional transformation McConaughey so convincingly expressed.  In our introduction to this man, we see him  snorting cocaine and having sex with two women in a rodeo bullpen (yes - that's exactly what I said).  Half-way through the film, we cheer as he sticks up for his new homosexual business partner in a Piggly Wiggly.

Please know, he was a homophobic STRAIGHT cowboy, suddenly forced to interact with mostly homosexual people who were in desperate need of the same medications he wanted.  What he thought was a business to save his life, quickly became so much more.

This movie is supposed to be about a man given 30 days to live - unexpectedly learning he has HIV.  What this movie is really about is a man who was not ever really living.  He had surrounded himself with women only interested in his drugs and money, and with men only interested in his rodeo stories and his partying lifestyle.  Once word of his illness got out, he had no one.  

 The love and compassion he experienced with this new "family" and how he began to love them back -  was in my opinion the most relevant years of his life.  He was given 30 days to live, but he beat the odds and lived over five years longer.

In a movie that was about dying, he taught us more about living.  About acceptance and perseverance. About making your own destiny and never, ever taking no for an answer.

"I've got one life - I want it to mean something." ~Ron Woodruff 

 

 

Thanks, Mr. Woodruff.  Your life meant something to me.

Oscar Buzz:  

Best Picture
Actor - Matthew McConaughey

Supporting Actor - Jared Leto