Dallas Buyers Club: Thinking with the hearth

By Daniela Gómez S.

We just need one movie to change our opinion about anything. The Vietnam War had different connotations after Apocalypse now (Coppola, 1979). The general perspective about genocide in Rwanda was not the same after Rwanda hotel (George, 2004). In this way, discrimination against AIDS patients and negligence from FDA to allow alternative treatments to the disease is different after watching Dallas Buyers Club (Valleé, 2013).

Obviously, filmmakers manipulate historical facts to magnify the effects on audiences, to move the viewers and connect them with the character`s drama. But this characteristic of all kind of art doesn’t replace honesty. Dallas Buyers Club shows a man with a disorganized routine who find his reason to live in rodeo, bettings, drugs, liquor and sex. Unexpectedly, he discovers that he has AIDS. The rest of the movie we see him trying to survive. It is the story of a man that wants to live. The movie is not about pharmaceutical industry, the health system or FDA bureaucracy, but those are the obstacles to win the race against death.

As a result of that, Dallas Buyers Club doesn`t disappoint the public. The main character, Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), falls and rescues himself to live with dignity. His effort to contradict the prediction about his mortal destiny (30 days of life), makes him memorable. Also, it is impossible not feeling compassion for his partner in the club, Rayon (Jared Leto), a desperate woman (a transsexual guy) trying not to die. Who would resist the vital impulse of this group of people sentenced to die, not just because of AIDS, but for the social indifference?

The real story behind the movie gives it more legitimacy. Journalist Bill Minutaglio interviewed the real Woodroof for an extensive report for the Dallas Morning News. Then, one month before Woodroof died, Craig Borten recorded hours of conversation with him. Borten wrote the screenplay and worked during almost a decade to find producers and actors. So, the interest of film is narrative, aesthetic and historical. Director Jean-Marc Vallée achieved to show a new angle of AIDS issue because he uses a paradigmatic example to tell the meaning of being sick, and alone, in an intolerant society. Simultaneously, he gives cinema another dark hero, a character with a mundane heroism that produces curiosity and solidarity.

Dallas Buyers Club is interesting, funny and touching. It is not the best movie of the year, but like the Oscar Awards demonstrated, it has the best performances of the season.