Dallas Buyers Club – McConaughey and Leto in Oscar race

‘Dallas Buyers Club’ is based on the true story of Ron Woodroof, a drug-addicted, women-loving, homophobic man who was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1986 and given thirty days to live.

For this year, I have almost watched all Oscar-nominated movies and if anyone asks me about the best actor and movie of this season, honestly, it would really be tough for me to decide. However, the performance of Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto in the multi-Oscar nominated “Dallas Buyers Club” is all commendable.

The movie is very sensitive in nature, as it was portraying a biographical account of an AIDS patient Ron Woodroof from Texas. I’m not too sure if the movie solely pictures the true story of Woodroof, but we still can see it as loosely based drama on the real-life persona.

Nevertheless, the film starts with Woodroof as a thin, alcoholic, drug-taking, women-loving homophobic man, who enjoys life to the fullest, working as an electrician, until the day when he was diagnosed with HIV+, and given only 30 days to live.

Woodroof rubbished the doctors’ claim about his condition and went on to live his daily life, but the fear of being an AIDS patient pushed him to read more and more about the incurable disease. Those were the days in 1985 when the United States has no clear-cut path to combat the virus other than the only FDA-approved highly toxic AZT.

As a victim of the AIDS epidemic, Woodroof too tried his best to keep alive his wish to live further, by smuggling non-toxic drugs from outside the US and building a buyers’ club. With this, he not only waged a war against the machinery – the government and medical system – he certainly overcast his own fear by working side by side with a transsexual Rayon (played by Jared Leto).

Never ever I found that any of the performances overshadowed others. But the performance of both McConaughey and Leto certainly left no space for others, including Jennifer Garner who plays the composite character of a sympathetic doctor who was also not too sure of the then medical practice.

Finally, like many of us the thing you (might) notice in this movie is McConaughey’s radical weight loss, but his performance is praiseworthy and as a big-time movie buff I’ll really be happy if he wins the Oscar (Academy Award*). And sorry if I have not praised him enough; Leto is indeed amazing in this movie.

Here is the trailer for Dallas Buyers Club