MVFF36 Capsule Review – DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

altAfter a career of playing likable stoners and affable losers, Matthew McConaughey digs down for his most complex and difficult role in Dallas Buyers Club. Playing Ron Woodroof, a real-life straight Texan bull rider in 1985, his hard drinking, drugging and sexing ways catch up with him and he’s diagnosed with HIV. Woodroof is a homophobic, hostile and largely clichéd character, but McConaughey’s cache of charm lifts his portrayal above that cliché. Given a mere 30 days to live and denied AZT trials, he takes matters into his own hands and begins shipping in non-approved meds from Mexico. For all of McConaughey’s emaciated and adventurous performance though, it’s Jared Leto who astonishes. Playing Rayon, a pre-op transsexual who partners with Ron to distribute his contraband, Leto is frail and fragile yet assertive and strong. Faring far less well is Jennifer Garner in a thanklessly written role and an even less interesting performance as a doctor torn between helping Woodroof and her work at the hospital. Her character is just one of many issues with the film, which juggles problems with tone, script anachronisms (HIV wasn’t coined until 1986), and some bizarre editing. At times it feels like a test screening print, unfinished but almost there.