Well-written, Craftily-directed and Efficiently-acted True Story!

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2014)

Jean-Marc Vallée (of 'C.R.A.Z.Y.') quite craftily directs this well-written and efficiently-acted true story. The free-wheeling life of Ron Woodroof, a Texas cowboy and electrician, takes a turn when he gets diagnosed with AIDS and told to have only 30 more days to live. Ron, homophobic and racist, laughs at his luck for getting a disease which was mostly associated with homosexuals in that era. It takes a terrible disease like AIDS to finally make him a good and inspiring human being. The story is about his struggle and fight against the FDA to get proper medication for himself as well as other patients; it plays out quite well and keeps you interested till the end, starting from the stereotypes and discrimination faced by AIDS patients to the evil side of many agencies/institutions which are actually meant to protect the people rather than harming them, it shows how people, in their desperation to extend their life even a little, have to resort to whatever is available to them.
It's refreshing to see Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner together in a good movie, to help us erase our memory of watching them together in the horrible 'Ghosts of Girlfriends Past'. And to have Jared Leto as the snappy but kind cross-dresser Rayon alongside them was a real treat. Leto and McConaughey hold the movie together with their incredible transformations and brilliant performances; their commitment to the craft is really commendable. Both the actors are almost unrecognizable, and we completely get sucked into their screen lives.
An intriguing and gripping story of medical activism; takes you back to the early days of the AIDS epidemic, filled with fear and helplessness.