Ambient Lounge Film Review. THE DALLAS BUYERS CLUB starring Matthew McConaughey & Jennifer Garner

DIRECTOR:  Jean-Marc Vallee

 

CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto, Bradford Cox

 

Based on the true story of Ron Woodroff (Matthew McConaughey) a free-wheeling, hard nosed conservative rodeo cowboy who was diagnosed with HIV in 1985. The performance by McConaughey is stellar and totally captivating, taking his character from a homophobic, self-indulgent low-brow, to a man of more compassion and understanding. 

 

After being given just 30 days to live, he quickly found that the medical industry was only in the early stages of experimental crud development and testing for an effective Aids treatment and was not moving fast enough to help him, so Ron set out to find his own legal and illegal mix of drugs to try to stave off the advance of his disease. The success of his entrepreneurial efforts attracted a band of followers, many from the gay community, as well as the wrath of the medical establishment. To slip through a loophole in the law, which banned the buying or selling of drugs by individuals except for their own use, he established ‘The Dallas Buyers Club’, allowing him to claim that the club purchased goods for each individual own use, so was thus legal. The success of the club and the resulting mix of drugs that seemed to be far more effective than those supplied by the ‘establishment’, saw the changing of many drug laws as well as the escalation of the search for a cure for HIV.

 

This is an immensely moving, hard-hitting and beautifully acted movie that has the viewer inspecting every prejudice and belief that they hold. Through the slow act of dying, this ordinary man shows us all how to be extraordinary.

 

 

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