Dare to Live

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2014)

Nominated for a well deserved 6 Academy Awards this season, including Best Picture, Best Lead and Supporting Actor, and Best Hair and Makeup(which only had a $250.00 budget), this film is truly a fearless performance given both by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto.
The story is partly based on the true life of Ron Woodroof, a man diagnosed with HIV virus in the 80's. This was about the time Rock Hudson came clean about having the disease himself and finally revealing he was a gay man. No one in the medical field understood what the disease was or how to help patients with it, let alone have a cure for it - which in turn made normal everyday individuals panic when around someone diagnosed with HIV. Fearing that it would be caught airborne and not virally, people would disassociate themselves with individuals that had it and not take time to understand the disease or the person.
Ron is a hard talking, drug fueled, womanizer: an electrician by day and in his spare time a rider of bulls who cons betting men out of money. Through a series of events he winds up in the hospital and has his blood tested, finding out that he is HIV positive. Not wanting to hear the news that he has been given an "expiration" date of 30 days, he storms out of the hospital and proceeds to live his life the way he always has, hard and fast. Once giving the news to his friends, he soon finds himself an outcast with nowhere to turn. When he hears that there is an experimental drug called AZT holding clinical trials, he is determined to get his hands on it. Ron does not seem to be getting any better even though he is taking this drug, illegally I might add; so he makes a trip to Mexico where his life is drastically changed. Ron is taught that what you put in your body can dramatically change the course you are on.
Ron soon meets the ever charming Rayon ( Jared Leto) who is a man dressed in women's clothes. She stands for everything that Ron hates. Both being diagnosed with HIV, they decide to embark on a crazy idea: bring the medicine that will really work to the people that really need it - so they form a Buyers Club. For a monthly fee, patients will be given access to medicine that will help with pain and their life expectancy. However it is illegal and the FDA does not look favorably on this type of club since they are the main supporter of the drug AZT.
As the audience, we get to see Ron, not change who he is, but adapt to his circumstance. He grows to understand people and not be so hard and hateful. He learns that sometimes the people that we keep around are not our true friends, but the people that are around us when we are at our worst are the true friends. Jennifer Garner, Denis O'Hare, Steve Zahn, and Michael O'Neill round out this stunning cast.
The movie is quite graphic with strong language, drug use and nudity. McConaughey drastically lost 45 pounds for this role and at times appears quite emaciated. This is a movie to watch when children are not present for sure. My only complaint about the film would be that I would have liked to see the story delve a little further into the later part of Ron's life showing how he learned to cope with the disease. I highly recommend seeing this film if anything to understand that the epidemic of drug companies out to make money has existed for a long time and continues on today. All in all it's a great story and deserving of every award given this season. Shouldn't we all "Dare to Live"?