When the movie opens, Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) is a rodeo cowboy poking fun at Rock Hudson’s newspaper cover story about AIDS. Then as quickly as he teases, we learn that Woodruff has tested HIV positive himself. And it gets worse…he’s got 30 days to live. But that’s just fine, because he doesn’t buy it, so he’ll spend day one with a blond, a brunette and a lot of whiskey. But by day seven it gets serious…he’s getting sicker by the moment.
Enter Dr. Eve Sacks (Jennifer Garner) who works running study programs with pharmaceuticals. But Woodruff doesn’t want to be a guinea pig. Screw the FDA. He’s about to be DOA!
Woodruff eventually teams with a Mexican doctor (Griffin Dunne) to bring south-of-the-border drugs over the border to those in need. This is when our anti-hero and the film takes a turn. Our hero becomes the Harvey Milk/Sean Penn of activists as he charges $400 a month for AIDS victims to be part of his Dallas Buyers Club of drugs.
Why do we care about this trailer park hick with a bad attitude? McConaughey wears this role proudly and it’s not in his usual bronzed-Magic-Mike-surfer-body either. His body is transformed. He’s pale, emaciated, sad, fighting, but hopeful. It’s a beautiful thing watching him transform from ignorant and prejudice to sympathizing with what the very people he once called ‘Faggots.” Rayon(Jared Leto) is his cross dressing assistant, also terminally ill and the two make a strange magic injecting syringes and sharing survival mode. Remember Tom Hanks in Philadelphia? With a performance by Leto you’ll wonder why you don’t have a transvestite best friend in your own life…
Throughout the history of film we’ve seen actors fatten up and slim down, most recently Christian Bale in The Fighter. But in this above average film its McConaughey’s performance with his ghoulish physique that takes this to great film. Within five minutes of screen time, watching McConaughey transform into this character, embodying this victim, you know two things…not only has his entire life of anemic rom-com roles finally led him to this…but he’s going to win the Oscar.