Sigh. Those obligatory Oscar watches, eh? Dallas Buyers Club isn't something I was gagging to wrap my corneas around. I'd already formed an opinion, scraped like gilt with my magic mental teaspoon (I trust that thing implicitly) from the reactions of others and let's just say the result hadn't frogmarched me to the cinema. But in the interests of this review I swept the old intellectual desktop clean and gave it a chance.
Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is a skanky electrician rolling round Texas rodeos in the mid-eighties. He contracts AIDS, is given a month to live and sets about obtaining alternative treatments for himself and others with the help of the transgendered Rayon (Jared Leto), who gives him entrée to the queer community he despises. His entrepreneurial efforts set him against the medical establishment and more importantly the American Food and Drug Administration, who prosecute and sanction him at every turn. A simple, cogent premise that could travel in a dozen riveting directions, right?
Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is a skanky electrician rolling round Texas rodeos in the mid-eighties. He contracts AIDS, is given a month to live and sets about obtaining alternative treatments for himself and others with the help of the transgendered Rayon (Jared Leto), who gives him entrée to the queer community he despises. His entrepreneurial efforts set him against the medical establishment and more importantly the American Food and Drug Administration, who prosecute and sanction him at every turn. A simple, cogent premise that could travel in a dozen riveting directions, right?
I'll speak first to my fellow beady hypercriticals and say depleted palette. Because a lot of you will know what that means- code brown, my friends. Arthouse lite. Fincher institutional colours/take my secretive genius seriously filter. It's such a Pavlovian cue now and fucking everyone's doing it, so note to filmmakers everywhere; enough with the backed-off sepia and faux-polaroid anachronistic foolishness. It's played out, mmmokay?
Overworked stylistic flourishes do have a value in that they refer, perversely and rather ruthlessly, to both narrative deficits and dodgy performances. Dallas Buyers Club features both. While Woodroof's persistence and native resourcefulness are explored, the story is undercooked and overlong; in a word, flabby. Sometimes boring, and without even using that grind to put us into his skin or really serving the matter to hand. There is at least some laudable ambiguity around the morality of Woodroof's modus, but I felt that was something dumped in front of me and left to languish, bereft of the examination it possibly deserved.
At the heart of the film's problems is the division of attention. Too much was/is lavished upon the two leads, who can't really reward or sustain that scrutiny while everyone else is reduced to walk-on cardboard, including token chick Dr Saks (Jennifer Garner). She bangs a wall with a hammer in frustration (I shit you not), but then I've yet to see Garner even come close to transcending the mediocre material that seems to be her lot.
Overworked stylistic flourishes do have a value in that they refer, perversely and rather ruthlessly, to both narrative deficits and dodgy performances. Dallas Buyers Club features both. While Woodroof's persistence and native resourcefulness are explored, the story is undercooked and overlong; in a word, flabby. Sometimes boring, and without even using that grind to put us into his skin or really serving the matter to hand. There is at least some laudable ambiguity around the morality of Woodroof's modus, but I felt that was something dumped in front of me and left to languish, bereft of the examination it possibly deserved.
At the heart of the film's problems is the division of attention. Too much was/is lavished upon the two leads, who can't really reward or sustain that scrutiny while everyone else is reduced to walk-on cardboard, including token chick Dr Saks (Jennifer Garner). She bangs a wall with a hammer in frustration (I shit you not), but then I've yet to see Garner even come close to transcending the mediocre material that seems to be her lot.
McConaughey's performance is adequate, if you accept that you're only going to get the very few things he can do, regardless of what is actually required (exhibit A: True Detective). Leto is typically, terribly thirsty, tooth-achingly self-conscious, running out of stunt queen moves halfway through his role and just tapping out and going limp when shit gets real. That he could not rise to the dramatic opportunities posed by parental confrontation and pointy-end mortality tells you... well, everything you need to know.
It's not all his fault; as a character, Rayon is superficially recognisable, but also a sloppy pastiche of workhorse clichés and lazy framing, a microcosm of this thing in the round and here's where I go into mini-rant mode. No one would argue that clichés are without value or even authenticity; they are one of the founding structures of any subcultural expression after all. But in the game of militant personal identity, attendant clichés are also knowingly subverted, kicked around and punted into the stands rather than regarded as the kind of gospel suggested by these hamfisted depictions. So many extrinsic observers of otherness miss this glaring subtext. Let loose without an ounce of subtlety or irony between them, McConaughey and Leto look like the mugging goons they are. Two fucking Oscars, my arse.
It's not all his fault; as a character, Rayon is superficially recognisable, but also a sloppy pastiche of workhorse clichés and lazy framing, a microcosm of this thing in the round and here's where I go into mini-rant mode. No one would argue that clichés are without value or even authenticity; they are one of the founding structures of any subcultural expression after all. But in the game of militant personal identity, attendant clichés are also knowingly subverted, kicked around and punted into the stands rather than regarded as the kind of gospel suggested by these hamfisted depictions. So many extrinsic observers of otherness miss this glaring subtext. Let loose without an ounce of subtlety or irony between them, McConaughey and Leto look like the mugging goons they are. Two fucking Oscars, my arse.
Anyone with even a passing interest in the AIDS crisis and the establishment's response knows the FDA and successive political/medical administrations have been major villains in the tragedy that is still unfolding. Dallas Buyers Club could have gone a lot further into those still trackless woods and profited greatly from the telling of such dreadful and complicated things. But it's just not that kind of film. After all the hype and oversaucing, DBC is still a B-, and that's only because I'm in a good mood.
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