McConaughey: Capitalist redemption

Woodroof got the disease from having sex with a woman who used intravenous drugs, but that hardly matters in the world of Dallas Buyers Club. His friends don’t want him around any more, and he is thrown into a world of experimental treatments, intrusive laws and a misinformed public. The rodeo cowboy has been thrown to the ground.

Dallas Buyers Club is based on a true story that could have been played for pathos, but in the hands of Quebec director Jean-Marc Vallée (C.R.A.Z.Y.) it becomes a raggedy-edged drama about a man who finds a kind of capitalist redemption in adversity. Woodroof is told by doctors — represented by Denis O’Hare and Jennifer Garner — that the current anti-viral medicine, AZT, is not available, and is of questionable value anyway.

But he refuses to accept the bad news, first buying it on the black market from a hospital employee, and then going on a worldwide hunt for treatments that the Federal Drug Administration hasn’t approved.

Eventually he skirts the law by forming a “buyers club” that sells memberships and then provides medication to a mostly gay clientele that lines up to get it.

Woodroof is a hero to the community, a crusader of sorts, but he’s also a businessman, and nobody gets help without paying first: he’s a sort of Mother Teresa of Wall Street.

The heart of Dallas Buyers Club, though, comes in a different form. In the hospital, Woodroof meets Rayon (Jared Leto), a flamboyant transsexual who befriends him and won’t let go despite Woodroof’s initial repulsion at the very idea.

Rayon, who’s obsessed with the glam rocker Marc Bolan, eventually becomes a partner in the club, and the oddcouple matching gives the movie its comedy and its sentiment.