Vibrant and gritty, hilarious and heartfelt. Extraordinary turns from McConaughey and Leto.

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2014)

First off, Matthew McConaughey gives the best performance of the year. He's a swaggering rock star in the form of a beat down cowboy. Watching him is pure catharsis. This is a film about prejudice. On one side, there's the AIDs victims, the majority are homosexual males and some of which are fairly effeminate. On the other side are the brute working man; over-masculine, excessive and ignorant. The former are desperately looking for treatment, the latter are having threesomes. While we follow the prejudice of McConaughey's Ron Woodroof, it's difficult to not have some prejudice against him ourselves. But as his opinion is altered throughout the film, so is ours on him. Woodroof's charm and passion for justice, despite his vices, is utterly magnetic. McConaughey is hilarious and heartfelt. While it's surprising he can deliver a performance like this after a decade like the 2000s, the character is not too far from his style. Perhaps he's finally found the right fit. I really like his performances in the recent Mud and Killer Joe and I think he proved his talent in the 90s with Lone Star and Dazed and Confused, but Dallas Buyers Club is a pure 'born to play' role.
Directed by French-Canadian Jean-Marc Valee, there's a distinct European vintage style to his work, the only other film of his I've seen is the French-language C.R.A.Z.Y. The cinematography and costume design are gritty and saturated, but vibrant and alive. It feels like it was shot in the 80s. The film is full of compelling contradictions like these in all aspects of its design. It's a shame that the editing is not similar. It's punchy. Too punchy. I can't count the amount of times Woodroof passed out and it featured a harsh cut to black. It's exhausting and overstimulating. Which, you could say, reflects the tone of the film and characters ideally, but it affects the power of its payoffs and can end up confusing. It's one of the films where I read the script beforehand and my main problem was the pacing was too rushed. Fortunately it doesn't affect my investment in the characters. As McConaughey has said in awards speeches, the script has been passed around 86 times and that's a surprising figure given that it's such a great underdog tale. That said, I do feel like it's oversimplified in points, particularly with miracle drug vs. poison and the magical disbarred doctor who can cure AIDs. Feels a tad too Hollywood.
However, while I disagree with critics who consider the above mere pedestrian, we all agree on worthy praise to Jared Leto. He's a strange actor, there's something cold and artificial about him, but entirely sincere. His most memorable performances before Dallas Buyers Club are probably Fight Club and Requiem For A Dream where he was memorable, but outshone by his cast-mates. Given the hype, I was underwhelmed with Leto at first. While Rayon is certainly unique to this world, he's not necessarily granted cinematic entrances. Perhaps this is a case of an actor making the best of a relatively weak character. However, once he's stripped off his identity and put in a suit to talk to his father, the humanity of Leto's performance is laid bare. It's a portrait of a man facing mortality and what to do with his last days and Leto absolutely shattered my heart. While reading the script, I wasn't sure if Leto could really transcend the page and he didn't exactly let me down at first but boy did he surprise me when the big guns were pulled out. Although I prefer Fassbender in 12 Years A Slave for this year, it will be a well deserved Oscar win and one we wouldn't have been able to predict not even a year ago. Dallas Buyers Club is an entertaining and poignant film that's worth watching beyond its two star performances.
8/10