A redemption narrative. Matthew McConaughey won his Best Actor Oscar here for playing Ron Woodroof, a hard living Texas electrician who contracts HIV in the 1980's and goes on to found and run a successful 'Buyers Club' in Dallas. Buyers Clubs were apparently something of a niche phenomenon in the 80's, it was a way for people suffering from HIV or AIDs to get around laws against non approved drugs for their treatment. To avoid the legal consequences of paying for the non FDA approved drugs directly, people would pay a monthly membership fee to a Buyers Club, and get the medication as a 'free' benefit of that membership.
The movie takes its liberties with this true story, which even without them would be an inspiring one, and which McConaughey does a very good job of anchoring. To enhance the effect of Woodroof's personal transformation they make him start off as more of an asshole then he purportedly was, but fortunately never make him into to much of a saint afterword's, though by the end he is a vastly transformed man. Jared Leto won an Oscar here as well for Best Supporting Actor as Rayon, a composite character who is a flamboyant homosexual, and a counterpoint to the heterosexual Woodroof. Jennifer Garner is another composite character, Dr. Eve Saks (shades of Oliver Sacks?) a compassionate doctor and sort of chaste love interest for McConaughey.
A well balanced film with some strong performances, it finds a compelling human interest story to ground a telling of AIDS crises America from a perspective I hadn't seen. This story had been in a development hell since the 1990's and at one point Dennis Hopper was slated to direct. French Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée does a good job here with the Texas 80's setting. The movie envelops you with a feeling of its quality and importance, yet remarkably never felt that self important to me, which is something I feared some going in. ****
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