Dallas Buyers Club tells the story of
Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughy), an electrician, bull rider, and hustler who,
after being diagnosed with AIDS, violates an FDA ban on importing drugs from
Mexico. While Dallas Buyers Club deserves
credit for tackling such a recent and deeply troubling subject matter—the1980s
AIDS crisis and its corresponding homophobia and bigotry—it fails to rise to
the challenge presented by the subject matter. There is a great movie somewhere
in Dallas Buyers Club, but ultimately
the film relies too much on Hollywood cliché to become something meaningful.
The movie’s
strength lie in the performances of McConaughy as Woodruff and Jared Leto as
Rayon, a transsexual AIDS patient and later Woodruff’s business partner. Both
underwent startling physical transformations to play their roles (Step 1
towards winning an Oscar). McConaughy channels all of his charm and confidence
into his performance as Woodruff. He ably plays Woodruff’s cockiness and charisma
in battling the FDA, the reluctant Dallas gay community, and winning over the
affections of a hospital doctor, Eve (Jennifer Garner). His performance,
however, troublingly transforms Woodruff’s own homophobia and bigotry into a side
note—something that needs overcoming rather a significant obstacle towards
sympathizing with his character. In their scenes together, Leto matches
McConaughy’s charisma with a startling energy and determination. He refuses to
allow McConaughy’s star power to gobble up the entire screen. He offers a
sympathetic portrayal of a transsexual woman in an era that discriminated
against anyone who challenged prescribed gender and sexual roles.
While
McConaughy and Leto offer compelling performances, the rest of the film fails
to meet the challenge of its subject matter. In telling the story of Woodruff,
a heterosexual man, who becomes a pioneer in battling the stigma of AIDS, the
film relies on Hollywood paternalistic tropes of a “normal” person standing up
for the oppressed minority—for examples look at some recent Oscar nominated
films: white lady saves black kid (The
Blind Side), white man ends slavery (Lincoln),
or white lady supports civil rights (The
Help). Rather than showing how gay and lesbian activists challenged bigotry
and oppression, we have Matthew McConaughy, the embodiment of a rugged and heterosexual
masculine identity, leading the charge. At the end of the film, Woodruff’s
patients cheer and celebrate him for standing up to the FDA. The majority of
AIDS victims in the film spend their time waiting in lines to get drugs from
Woodruff—seeking a cure from the straight white man. As Woodruff fights the
FDA, the plot of the film descends into a tried and true narrative of man
against uncaring and crooked institution.
Yet within
the film lay the potential for a much more meaningful story. The AIDS crisis of
the 1980s produced frightening levels of bigotry, homophobia, and blatantly
false information about the spread of HIV. President Reagan refused to call the
disease by its name. The American government’s lack of response to the crisis
remains a stain on the history of America in the 1980s. The gay rights
movement, begun in earnest in the 1960s, gained traction by protesting
discrimination and homophobia. The film attempts to capture some of this fear
and paranoia, but fails to fully grasp it. After learning of his diagnosis,
Woodruff’s rodeo buddies recoil in horror at the prospect of even touching him.
They pelt him with homophobic slurs. The scenes, however, come across more as
acknowledgments of the era’s bigotry than effectively recapturing it. Instead
of spending more time on this part of the AIDS crisis, the film has Woodruff
woe Eve, the female doctor (whose character remains horribly underdeveloped),
fly around the world looking for drugs, and battle the FDA in court. Rayon,
meanwhile, sells her life insurance policy in order help Woodruff stay in
business—the ultimate selfless act by an oppressed minority to help her
paternalist benefactor.
Dallas Buyers Club warrants praise for
addressing a dark and disturbing part of American history. Yet it squanders the
opportunity to tell a meaningful or challenging version of that story. It instead
settles for a comforting and safe history of an era marked by bigotry and discrimination.
