Ronald Woodruff wasn’t supposed to be the kind of guy that got AIDS.
That was something homosexuals got, faggots as Ron would likely call them. He
points to a fresh 1980s newspaper chronicling the death of Rock Hudson and
decries the massive shame it was that Rock had access to all that Hollywood
pussy and wasted the opportunity by being gay. AIDS was also something
intravenous drug users got, and Ron Woodruff wasn’t that either. I mean he
snorted cocaine and drank heavily and had unprotected sex with plenty of women
(we are introduced to him via a threesome under the bleachers at a Texas
rodeo), but none of that had anything to do with needles or homosexuality. So
when Ron Woodruff passes out from a massive headache, wakes up in the hospital,
and is told that he has a T-Cell count of 9 and 30 days left to live, he
doesn’t believe it. “There’s nothing that can kill Ron Woodruff in 30 days,” he
declares to the doctors and storms out of the hospital.
“Dallas Buyer’s Club,” directed by Jean-Marc Vallee attempts to do two
things with the biographical story of Ronald Woodruff of Dallas, Texas. The
first thing it does is demonstrate how his terminal illness and his subsequent
business dealings with the gay community opened his eyes to society’s
intolerance and indifference towards the “homosexual” AIDS epidemic and broke
down his own prejudices. The second is an educational primer on the various
drugs that were in the process of being approved by the FDA in response to the
AIDS epidemic. One being AZT, a drug that is being championed by the FDA but the
movie treats as a killer. The other drugs are the all-natural ones that Ron
Woodruff starts peddling to the Dallas community. It was Ron’s unshakable
belief (based not only the research he did but the anecdotal experience of
taking every drug himself before selling it to anybody else) that his drugs,
though they did not cure the disease (nothing could do that we learn), would be
able to prolong life. They do this by merely making the body healthier in
general, whereas AZT, sort of like chemotherapy, kills everything patient
included. The movie does the first thing better than the second.
First things first: this year’s award in stunt acting goes to the acting
team of Matthew McCounaaghey and Jared Leto, playing respectively Ronald
Woodruff and Rayon, Ron’s transsexual business partner. Both have lost an
incredible amount of weight for their roles. McCounaghey is perhaps more
unrecognizable here being once upon a time People’s Sexiest Man Alive back when
he had superfluous muscales and did nothing but dumb romantic comedies. It’s
all gone now as if he has shed all the superficial romcom dumbness and what is
left is the emaciated frame of a serious actor. To witness the turn in career
choices that McCounaghey has accomplished over the last couple years is quite
remarkable. “Dallas Buyer’s Club” is the capper. An Academy Award nomination
would not be surprising. It is also a relief to witness the return of Jared
Leto (Requiem from a Dream) after a five-year hiatus of pop stardom. In addition
to slimming down he has put on a dress. The character Rayon apparently is not
based on one real person but rather a composite of the gay community. It is an
ingenious strategy concerning the age-old problem of capturing a lifetime
within a two-hour frame. In this way, Ron’s changing attitude is reflected
through his relationship with one particular person rather in several people
and the emotional payoffs are far more effective.
I’m going to take a moment and throw in a political comment here, an
indulgence I am happily allowed by writing an anonymous blog that nobody reads.
“Dallas Buyer’s Club” is a great movie for the fan of Capitalism. Generally it
has been said that Capitalism has no morals. But that is not necessarily true.
The morals of Capitalism are honesty, equal treatment, and tolerance. A man may
not like a person or a group of people, but if he is a true capitalist he will
trade with that person for the right price. Racial segregation, Caste systems, exclusionary
zoning, and ornerous governmental regulation: all are great enemies of
Capitalism. The “Dallas Buyer’s Club” is a great example of how Capitalism
transforms the prejudiced man who takes its ideals to heart. Ron Woodruff is
above all else a hustler. When he sees that there is a market for unapproved
Mexican drugs in Dallas, he sets out to exploit it with rational self-interest
and what is born of the Dallas Buyers Club is an unambiguously good
collaboration of buyers and sellers trying to help each other survive. Is it
evidence that the Dallas Buyer’s Club was a good thing that helped people because
Ron Woodruff was able to make money? Yes, yes it is.
What is not dones too well is the movies’ treatment of AZT. This comes
from the subtitle at the end of the movie. It states that: “A smaller dose of
AZT combined with other drugs saved millions of lives.” Given the movie I just
watched, that line does not make sense. I had just spent two hours watching Ron
Woodruff declare that the doctors doling out AZT were murderors, a hospital
administator played by Denis O’Hare (an actor that specializes in white collar
sleaze) who cares more about money than good science, and a third doctor played
by Jennifer Garner who is sympathetic to Woodruff’s cause and at one point is
asked to resign because of it. So what is the deal with AZT? Why is the movie
telling us with its last line that it works when it does not offer any evidence
to suggest that from in the movie? This is the sort of detail that makes the
watcher feel the need to look up on Wikipedia the true story, which I have not
done yet because I wanted my confusion to be readily apparent in this review.
In cases like this, I always bring up that Oliver Stone anecdote. He was
accused of propaganda and his reply was this: how can you tell that my movies
are not propaganda? Because they aren’t boring. Propaganda by definition only
shows one point of view, and because of that necessary lack of conflict, it is
not exciting. A storyteller may have a point of view. A storyteller may have an
agenda. But if that storyteller does not give the other side its full due, the
story will not be exciting. “Dallas Buyer’s Club,” has this problem. By the
end, we see Ron Woodruff time and again being victimized unjustly by the system
for arbitrary reasons. The reasons may have been stupid for all I know, but
what I do know from watching the movie is that the other side is not getting a
fair shake. They are not given the chance to explain themselves. We see plenty
of scenes of Jennifer Garner trying to persuade Denis O’Hare of the
ineffectiveness of AZT. Instead of giving Denis the opporutunity to respond,
the movie simply has him ignore Jennifer. In the end, we are left with only one
side of the argument, and because of that the epitath does not make sense.
What is the truth? I’m afraid you may have to do your own research.
