Best Film of 2013

Rating: 9/10 (23 February 2014)

In 1985 Dallas, electrician and hustler Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) works around the system to help AIDS patients get the medication they need after he is himself diagnosed with the disease.
While "12 Years a Slave" is likely the winner of Academy Award for Best Picture, this review will make the case for "Dallas Buyers Club". Personally, this is the stronger film and the more important film.
We all know that Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto gave the best performances of their respective careers here. The extreme weight loss (and health damage it caused) is enough to deserve an award, but then to go on and give powerful performances is just amazing. Leto is more than convincing as Rayon, a pre-op transsexual woman. If he does not win, something is wrong with the world.
Matthew McConaughey has only risen over the years, going from cult movies ("Dazed and Confused", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next generation") to romantic comedies ("Failure to Launch" among others). He has now gone on to repeated success with "Killer Joe", "Mud" and this film (not to mention his brief part in "Wolf of Wall Street"). His acting may continue to be honed, but will he ever surpass this role? I think not, and for that reason he needs the award.
Back to the film as a whole. While "12 Years a Slave" deals with the historically emotional subject of slavery, "Dallas Buyers Club" brings us a far more hard-hitting story. The 1980s are not so long ago that we cannot remember them, but are just far enough ago that relatively few to practically none of the people suffering from AIDS at the time are still with us today. Only a few decades later, HIV infection does not have to be the end of the world, and this film shows the turning point in that battle.
Further, there is the interesting distinction that Woodroof made between "not approved" and "illegal". This makes for a brilliant plot point -- what he was doing was not importing illegal drugs, but merely ones that were not granted a seal of approval from the government yet. Whether that makes such medication illegal or not is fascinating -- and then the loophole of selling memberships rather than selling drugs... brilliant again! The film is both emotional and highly intelligent.
Parallels have probably been drawn -- with or without success -- to today's issues of marijuana legalization, FDA approval of current drugs, or the health care system as a whole. But this is not necessary for the film to be meaningful and enjoyable.
The only issue I had was Woodroof's transformation from a bigot to someone who at least tolerates homosexuality, if not fully accepts it. He seems to transition much quickly than one might expect. Allegedly, the real life Woodroof was not anti-gay and may even have been bisexual. That would have worked well, or at least toning the bigotry down in the early scenes. Getting from A to B in two hours is plausible, but A to C or D? Not gonna happen.