Few screen actors have ever had a year as good as Matthew McConaughey, who follows up his bravura work as an escaped convict in “Mud” with a tour de force as an unforgettable if unlikely true-life Texan hero in Jean-Marc Vallée’s absorbing “Dallas Buyers Club.”
The film, which also contains a must-see performance by Jared Leto as a transsexual, portrays the almost unbelievable story of Ron Woodroof, a virulently homophobic electrician, rodeo rider and casual drug user, who becomes an unlikely AIDS activist after being diagnosed with HIV in 1985.
Given 30 days to live by the doctor (Denis O’Hare) who delivers the diagnosis, the emaciated Woodroof becomes a self-taught expert who obtains drugs on the black market. He travels to Mexico and other countries for treatments not then available in the United States.
For the next seven years of his life, Woodroof tirelessly battles with the US medical establishment, which at the time had approved a single drug — the very expensive and highly toxic AZT — for AIDS.
Woodroof also fights off efforts by the FDA and various other federal agencies to shut down his illegal, for-profit “club” that provides unauthorized drugs for free to AIDS-stricken members who pay monthly “dues.”
McConaughey has never been better than as the charismatic Woodroof, who finds himself with the gay community he previously despised after being shunned by his friends (and losing his job) after they learn about his diagnosis.
It’s a remarkable story, vividly and urgently told by French-Canadian director Vallée (“The Young Victoria”) from a pointed, schmaltz-free script by Craig Borten and Melissa Wallack.
Jennifer Garner does the best work of her career as a doctor who risks her career to help Woodroof’s wildly unorthodox crusade. Griffin Dunne is also very good as a disgraced doctor who runs a Mexican clinic — and becomes Woodroof’s first key drug supplier.
A virtually unrecognizable Leto tears your heart out (and will certainly get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) as Rayon, a drug-addicted transsexual who becomes Woodroof’s closest friend and business partner.
There’s great chemistry in the scenes between the avowedly heterosexual, macho Woodroof and the vulnerable Rayon, who dresses in men’s clothes to plead for money from her father in one of the movie’s most moving scenes.
McConaughey, himself a sure Oscar nominee for Best Actor, depicts Woodroof’s unusual journey with great sensitivity. He injects enough levity and sheer charm into his performance to lighten up what could have been a fairly grim chronicle into a highly entertaining and relatable movie.
Few actors could have pulled off a scene where Woodroof tries to smuggle drugs across the US-Mexican border by posing as a priest — or donning a suit in an attempt to order industrial quantities of anti-AIDS drugs on a trip to Japan — without it seeming ridiculous.
McConaughey shed 38 pounds for his role in “Dallas Buyers Club” — and his shocking appearance serves as a vivid reminder of how slowly the medical establishment and government moved against this epidemic.