So it’s no surprise that Matthew McConaughey is $1.22 or thereabouts with the betting agencies to win in 2013 (by the time you read this he should have already won).
McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof, hard-nosed, straight and rough as they come Texan, boots, rodeos and cowboy hat included. When in 1985 Woodroof gets diagnosed with AIDS, it sets off a chain of events that are still being felt in the way that large pharmaceutical companies work hand-in-hand with governments to market and regulate their products.
Woodroof took matters into his own hands when he was prevented from participating in AIDS treatment drug trials. What started as sourcing his own treatment eventually became a bootlegging business for alternative treatments he sourced firstly in Mexico then anywhere in the world he could get them. The business became a cause and then a campaign.
What sets Dallas Buyers Club apart from most biopics is the successful treading of the fine line between the sometimes-predictable human dramas and the great insights into the social, economic and political dramas of the time.
McConaughey may have lost over 20kg for this role but in terms of his acting CV he’s never been weightier.
