Absolutely Remarkable Movie and Performances

Rating: 10/10 (8 March 2014)

I am avid movie lover and have seen more than 2,000 movies in my tome - and remember most of them. The best male lead performance I have ever seen is Paul Schofield in a Man For All Seasons. In second place, I had Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine - until now. I've long liked McConnaughy and found him very impressive in We Are Marshall and The Lincoln Lawyer. Neither performance set me up for this. His every mannerism, every nuance, every way of carrying himself in every scene and every situation is utterly on target. This is a terrific movie and almost the entire cast is flawless but the lead performance is truly in a class by itself.
The next point I wish to make is that this is one of the few of the very many independent movies I've seen that involved HIV and the gay community without hitting the viewer over the head with it even though it was 100% central to the plot. What I mean is that there was none of the normal obligatory gilding of the lily just to make sure the viewer gets the message.
Also interesting is the fact that both McConnaughy and Leto (also 100% Oscar-worthy) manage to play larger-than-life characters convincingly without ever acting larger-than-life. It's a subtlety and rare that actors can play such characters without chewing up the scenery but both manage somehow to do it which speaks quite well for the director.
The pacing is considerably better than most indies or Hollywood non- action dramas. I only looked at my watch once. Griffin Dunne is noteworthy in his supporting performance. Jennifer Garner is far better than in the last movie she did about battling Big Pharma, Love and Other Drugs. She still tries a quarter-of-an-octave too hard, but that's really getting picky in one of the best movies I've seen in this century thus far.