Movie No. 4 of 2014— Dallas Buyers Club
Matthew McConaughey is in a full-blown renaissance, playing a homophobe anti-hero who befriends a drag queen while fighting to keep him and his fellow AIDS sufferers alive.
I guess you’re handsome in a Texas-hick, white-trash, dumb kind of way.
So says Rayon (played by Jared Leto), as flamboyant and camp as drag queens come, when he encounters Ronald Woodroof (played by Matthew McConaughey) in a claustrophobic, dimly-lit hospital ward, both of them admitted for AIDS-related ailments. It’s one of those lines where you wonder if the writer was fully aware of the subtext coursing through it.
The sentiment of that line has floated about our collective consciousness ever since McConaughey started playing the handsome male lead in a series of romantic comedies last decade. (Oh yes. Admit it darling, You remember them. EDtv, The Wedding Planner, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, Failure To Launch, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past…) The first time I heard the word “himbo” used was when it was deployed as an adjective to describe him (or, at least, the roles that had made this Texan boy famous).
But McConaughey has managed to escape that ghetto of a genre. One might imagine he could have continued playing the Breezy Romantic Interest. Instead, he goes and plays against type (hard-boiled Southern man) in a string of movies that came out in 2012: Mud, Killer Joe, and The Paperboy. More recently, he (alongside an equally excellent Woody Harrelson) plays a brooding detective struggling to solve a gruesome satanic murder of a Louisiana prostitute in HBO’s True Detective. McConaughey’s role here in Dallas Buyers Club as Ron Woodruff is something like a capstone crowning the work he’s done so far.
For the most part, Ron isn’t terribly likeable. We first encounter him as a cocaine-snorting electrician, having ménage à trois in his trailer home. Even after he gets the news from his doctor (played by Jennifer Garner) that he’s only got a month to live, he does not have any epiphany—he keeps taking drugs and downing shots in strip clubs. When he starts selling non-approved drugs to the AIDS-afflicted gay community (necessitating the opening of the members-only guild of the film’s title to wriggle into legally-grey areas), it’s mainly because of the money (and getting enough supply so he himself can keep his AIDS at bay). The narrative’s refusal to fully moralize Ron lends it a sheen of realism—and for the better: the film becomes more engaging.
Besides having an anti-hero as its protagonist, there are other ways the film (directed by Frenchman Jean-Marc Vallee) doesn’t quite play out the rhythms of a stereotypical American AIDS drama. Stylistically it is more European kitchen-sink than Hallmark mini-series. While the film does provide glimpses into the 1980s gay milleu of America as well as burgeoning AIDS communities, gilmpses are all they are. The film isn’t interested in fleshing out the collusion between the drug companies and the FDA, or even pitting Ron against that system (admittedly it does so right at the end, however— in the interests of historical veracity). Its sole interest is clearly Ron Woodroof— he is in almost every scene, and the camera is usually placed a few inches from his gaunt, sunken cheeks.
Despite the weighty subject matter, the film never feels melodramatic or overwrought. Part of this has to do the chemistry shared between McConaughey and Jared Leto— the latter, by the way, is rather fetching in female clothing. He is utterly convincing as a 1980s transvestite, from his soft alto voice to his expressive eyes. Leto was playing this one note very well, until his scenes nearing the final act where he brings depth and pathos to what had been up till then dangerously close to caricature.
Jennifer Garner (re-united with McConaughey since Ghosts of Girlfriends Past) is perfectly acceptable as Dr. Eve Saks, who also becomes Ron’s ally. One of my favourite scenes in the film—ironically?—is when Ron meets her for dinner. It plays out like a perfect first date, almost as if it was taken verbatim from one of those rom-coms mentioned earlier. Ron is charming, funny, and even whimsical about his family history; he effortlessly compliments Eve’s appearance (although she is deliberately plain-looking here) while enjoying a glass of cabernet. Behold, our Breezy Romantic Interest, but bone-thin and unwell— this short dinner scene takes on unexpected depth. It is in scenes like this that McConaughey’s severe weight-loss pays off.
It is tempting, after watching Dallas Buyers Club, to wonder if film will continue to tell the stories of individuals whose tales might have gone un-noticed, just like Ron Woodroof. I, for one, hope so.
Further Reading
Slate asks if Ron Woodroof was actually bisexual.
The Los Angeles Times details the fascinating story of how Dallas Buyers Club eventually got made.
