Damaged but unbowed

Strange as this may sound, but at some point whenever I was watching Ron Woodroof in Jean-Marc Vallée's "Dallas Buyers Club", Larry Flynt in Milos Forman's "The People vs. Larry Flynt" would come to mind. Both are not entirely likeable characters - anti-heroes, as one may put it - who are utterly steadfast in espousing and putting into realization their unconventional and not-so-popular advocacy, a brash purpose that they have made upon themselves to be a major guiding light in their lives. For the latter, it is the art and legitimacy of porn publications;for the former, it is the medication or, at least, prevention of AIDS by means of "non-approved" drugs. AIDS - the stories of those afflicted, the stigma, the awareness and literacy efforts - is a sensitive subject-matter and there is no lack of feature films and documentaries that have already dealt with it, whether for better or for worse. There are two things though that may give "Dallas Buyers Club" its distinctive and exemplary character:the welcome lack of a hortatory and vindictive tone, and its uncanny ability to transport us back to that particular era when the world was just starting to grapple with the phenomenon of AIDS. The result is a telling portrait of a no-holds-barred yet damaged man who happened to be afflicted with the disease at a time when the mere mention of it was tantamount to being ostracized and executed, like a witch being burned at the stake. 

As Ron Woodroof, Matthew McConaughey shows absolute commitment and fearlessness in inhabiting the role - he simply disappears in the character. He's completely unglamorous, at times even ghastly, in how he appears, more so in how he behaves that we may begin to wonder if he doesn't really deserve what he got. This is moreover fuelled by the fact that in his portrayal of the character, Mr. McConaughey doesn't for a bit beg for our sympathy or compassion. Rather, he just makes us simply observe how he goes about his affairs, which allows us to weigh the matters on our own, in an objective kind of way, no different from a scientist or a documentarist. The only other actor's performance that I can think of which McConaughey's nearly approximates is that by Harvey Keitel in Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant". Complementing McConaughey is Jared Leto's equally brave portrayal as Rayon, a similarly-afflicted cross-dresser and a voluntary subject for the AZT testing (then in experimental stage) on AIDS/HIV patients, who becomes Woodroof's unlikely associate and ally in their efforts to smuggle in and distribute among fellow patients "non-approved" medications by way of a paid membership in a group that they formed as "Dallas Buyers Club". He likewise completely immerses himself in his character, the damage on his soul in congruence with the damage on his physicality. The character runs the risk of being sensational, but Mr. Leto exhibits an admirable discipline so as not to cross over into that territory. He is a similarly not totally likeable person, exhibiting some ugly flaws here and there, but rather than becoming an object of ridicule, Leto uncannily turns the person into a source of warmth. In a sense, Rayon may just be the soft cushion for Woodroof's hardened life. This visceral quality of Leto's performance may be comparable in some way to his own performance as an irredeemable junkie in Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream". 

Both McConaughey's and Leto's anti-hero characters hark back to similar characters who were dominant in Hollywood cinema of the '70s. What's pleasantly ironic is that in spite, or rather because of, the "distance" that their delineation of such characters puts between them and the audience, we are just all the more drawn into them and all the more see through them. This is another instance wherein we can say that their winning of the Oscar acting trophies for this year was no fluke. You want to study Method Acting, then you might just as well take a look at those two marvelous actors onscreen. 

Another remarkable thing is that even if they are the major players in the film, the screenplay was written in such a way that whenever there are scenes that show them amongst people, especially fellow patients, rather than towering above them, they just become united with them, the sense of community and shared predicament being subtly displayed. It goes to show that the director and screenwriters have an ear for a symbiotic human interaction. And as mentioned above, the film has this startling quality of being able to transport us to that particular time when AIDS was just slowly but surely beginning to crawl itself up to worldwide consciousness. Just this once again in our cinematic lives, we come into contact with the look and vibe of a bygone era without having that intrusive and self-conscious feel. Everything just flows naturally, as if in the here and now. How Vallée's 1980s Texas registers onscreen can be compared to how David Fincher's 1970s California in "Zodiac" does so. The era becomes a character in itself in such a way that we cannot simply say that life was simpler back then. 

"Dallas Buyers Club" doesn't have any pretension of being a sappy story or a cautionary tale or a triumphant ode to the human spirit. Ron Woodroof and Rayon just go through the motion of living daily with the affliction, be it in dignified abandon or with some sort of selected precaution (sex, drugs and all such things aplenty still). Whether their avowed purpose will turn out in the end to be futile or not, the best thing is that they didn't take things sitting down. With that, the film becomes all the more sincere and powerful. 

"Dallas Buyers Club's" subtly defiant poster