Thanks to SeeFilmFirst, my husband and I went to a preview screening of the Dallas Buyers Club last night at the Showcase Cinema.
IMDB describes the movie as: In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is himself diagnosed with the disease.
Inspired by true events, Matthew McConaughey (The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike) plays Woodroof, a homophobic, heavy drinking/smoking, cocaine using, rodeo bull rider who indulges in lots of casual sex. Forced to realise the horrors of his hard-living lifestyle by a HIV+ diagnosis, he is given 30 days to live. Once the denial has passed, Ron resolves to research everything he can find on the disease. Returning to the hospital where he was diagnosed by Drs Sevard (Denis O'Hare, True Blood, Milk) and Dr Saks (Jennifer Garner, Argo, Juno), he finds that he is unable to be given the trial dose of AZT as part of the clinical trial, or to buy it, and is essentially told to go to a support club and accept the inevitable.
Finding that there are alternative drugs available to treat the disease over the border in Mexico, he meets 'Dr' Vass, a former American physician who has realised the side effects of AZT far outweigh the benefits, and has found a cocktail of alternatives that appear to be treating the symptoms. They are unapproved by the FDA, but Ron smuggles them over the border in order to sell to other HIV+ patients.
He forms an unlikely friendship with Rayon (Jared Leto, 30 seconds to Mars, Fight Club) a transvestite he met at the hospital undergoing the AZT trial, who helps him sell to the gay community and soon has a flourishing business that the FDA tries to shut down.
McConaughey is a stand-out, who resembles Christian Bale in the role, who thoroughly deserves his Best Actor Oscar nomination (his first Oscar nomination) and although Woodroof is hard to like, empathy and character growth win you over. For me though, the star of the movie is Leto, who nails the part and you love him despite the drug-addict flaws; fingers crossed that he wins the Best Supporting Actor Oscar he is nominated for. The movie is also nominated for the Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture Oscars and McConaughey has just won a Critics' Choice Best Actor Award for his role in the movie.
A hard-hitting movie that proves money is power in most things, even if it is a matter of life or death.
Tagline: Dare to live. 8/10
#DallasBuyersClub #SeeFilmFirst
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