Matthew McConaughey (Focus Features) |
To live.
We’ve just met Ron Woodroof, an electrician and
rodeo cowboy, who seems to spend an equal amount of time getting drunk and
having sex. Suddenly ill, he finds himself in the hospital, being told what was
unthinkable for a straight man in 1985: he was HIV positive. “Get your affairs
in order,” the doctor tells him. He doesn’t. Instead, his crash course in
research about AIDS makes him the most unlikely – and initially, unlikeable - cinematic
hero you will even encounter.
Based on a true story, Dallas Buyers Club recounts with great authenticity a moment in
history. Rock Hudson had just died. Tens of thousands of non-celebrities had died of AIDS. ACT UP
hadn’t been formed. It would be three years before President Reagan actually
said the word “AIDS” out loud. It was five years into the epidemic, and there
was no known effective drug to treat those who were infected. Most people still
believed only gay men – and IV-drug users – were at risk.
Woodroof, played by Matthew McConaughey, is scammed by a hospital employee who for a
time sold him AZT – only available to those in a clinical trial, and even then,
only to those who weren’t unknowingly getting a placebo. But he refers Ron to a
doctor in Mexico. There he finds alternatives to AZT not available in the US
because they hadn’t been approved by the FDA. That didn’t mean they weren’t effective
– just not approved (so they were technically illegal). But when given a month
to live, those are details easily ignored.
Jared Leto (Focus Features) |
The AIDS epidemic made advocates of unlikely people,
and Ron Woodroof was one of the most unlikely. He did not live 30 days. He lived
seven years. Other buyer’s clubs sprang up in New York and San Francisco, among
other cities, though they tended to be nonprofit organizations. There was
nothing nonprofit about the Dallas Buyers Club. And Woodroof didn’t stop at
Mexico. He traveled to Amsterdam and Tokyo and wherever there were drugs that
could help him and his members.
To understand the panic, you have to realize the
perfect storm of 1985. The FDA demanded clinical trials where half of the
patients got placebos, effectively sentencing them to death. It could take ten
years to work through the bureaucracy before approval. Only AZT was “available”,
though there were other drugs (like those Woodroof acquired) that could be
purchased over the counter in other countries. Once diagnosed, a 30-day life
expectancy was not uncommon. Those known to have AIDS frequently were fired from their jobs and
lost their homes, which happened to Woodroof.
I attended a screening with other members of ACT UP. None of us knew what to expect. But I found myself nodding my head at times: characters
who were afraid to touch Ron, suspicion and misinformation, unsympathetic
doctors more committed to drug money than their dying patients. I remembered it
all too well.
Director Jean-Marc Vallee does a terrific job of
taking us back to that moment in time: the irrational fears, the bigotry, the
governmental indifference, the entrenched medical community. And his film
confirmed something I said in my book: that the story of the AIDS epidemic would
be about friendship. Ron and Rayon are the oddest of friends: joined by a
health crisis that neither could’ve predicted, slowly putting aside their own
prejudices to help themselves and others.
Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto both give
Oscar-worthy performances, and Jennifer Garner does well as a doctor who
gradually comes around to Woodroof’s side.
Dallas
Buyers Club is a powerful, deeply moving film that
will move you and possibly offend you, too (especially if you don’t like
hearing the F word). But it may be the most important movie of the year. It opens
in select cities on November 1. Don’t miss it.
To watch a trailer or behind-the-scenes video of Dallas Buyers Club, click here.
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