The third of the year's queer Oscar-bait features erupts in a first-act explosion of bad-ass behavior in which a crazy man sheds more brain cells and T-cells than the Good Lord ever intended. Dallas Buyers Club 's anti-hero Ron Woodroof, in a career turn and guaranteed Oscar nomination by a skeletal Matthew McConaughey, finds himself near death in a charity hospital ward. For hyper-macho Ron, things are even worse than they seem, for behind a curtain is Rayon (Jared Leto, pushing his body and craft to the limit). Technically a pre-op MTF transsexual, Rayon will be an unsettling angel of mercy for former rodeo-rider Ron. "Relax! I don't bite. I guess you're kind of handsome in a Texas, hick, white-trash, dumb kind of way."
Watching a film called Dallas Buyers Club is a mind-blower for me, who suffered the zombie-bite fever of first love there. In this 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination, Dallas will be red-meat bait for blue-state snobs. But my anxiety is somewhat relieved when I notice the name of Club's director, Montreal-born Jean-Marc Vallee, the creator of perhaps the last decade's finest family coming-out drama. With 2005's C.R.A.Z.Y., Vallee plumbed the homo-hating depths of another supersensitive "nation/state," his home province of Quebec, frequently ready to bolt Canada.
In Dallas, Vallee's challenge is to render the real-life hero Woodroof as the bigger-than-life good-old-boy his surviving friends remember without allowing him to drift towards irredeemable monster time. The early scenes illustrate the balancing act involved, as Woodroof gets the bad news from a charity-hospital doc, here played against type by the normally wisecracking out actor Denis O'Hare.
"Mr. Woodroof, you've tested positive for HIV. Have you ever used intravenous drugs? Have you ever engaged in homosexual conduct?"
"Did you say homo?"
As we meet him in 1985 Dallas (played by New Orleans for tax purposes), Woodroof is an ornery S.O.B. Riding the rodeo circuit, attempting to mount bulls even meaner than himself, Ron is all but living out of his car between bouts of Lone Star beer and playing poker with buddies barely less shiftless. He's definitely not the kind of galoot you'd use the "H-word" with, whether you meant hemorrhoids, hepatitis, or homosexuality. Told by O'Hare's blunt-speaking doc that he has probably 30 days to live, Woodroof throws a macho hissy-fit. Regaining his senses, this cowboy starts improvising, the way you might riding a bucking bronco. McConaughey's Ron straddles the line between Paul Newman's legendary Hud, out to screw the world, and a heartbreaking loner/loser like Heath Ledger's Ennis, contemplating his dead lover's shirt.
The filmmakers keep Ron from seeming too mean to live with a surrounding cast of sane helper-bees, such as Jennifer Garner's AIDS doc, his not-quite-love-interest who endures trash-talking guff, the theft of her prescription pad, and the potential loss of her hospital-staff job, all to protect a child/man from the consequences of his police-baiting behavior. One-time character actor Griffin Dunne stages a career revival as the folksy, Mexican-clinic alternative-meds expert upon whom much of the film's claims to scientific accuracy rest.
In 1985, almost nobody, either in libertarian Dallas or progressive San Francisco, had a clue about a remedy, let alone a cure. The HIV jungle drums were warning that the FDA-approved AZT might be worse than nothing, but what to do? The Dallas Buyers Club arose from Woodroof's need to prove he wasn't practicing medicine without a license: for $400 a month, members could mix or match the drugs of the month like jazz, or maybe Russian roulette.
The real Ron Woodroof lived with his death sentence into 1992, a few tantalizing years before the miracle-drug combination cocktails would fill the gaps he so desperately tried to fill with his imported drugs and supplements. The medical stuff rings true. But the heart of the film rests with the incendiary chemistry between Leto and McConaughey.
The Louisiana-raised Leto first had a music career in mind. But the androgynous, boyish artist found himself offered just enough choice catnip roles, from Claire Danes' rebel boyfriend in My So Called Life to Darren Aronofsky's addict in saintly denial in Requiem for a Dream, that he waited until 2009 to take his band 30 Seconds to Mars on tour. I find the actor �" his light brown hair worn shoulder-length, with a matching, slightly overgrown beard �" with the Rayon-inspired weight loss restored, but nursing a cold which has him shunning handshakes. He allows me to use his tissue box as a digital-camera tripod. Speaking softly in a Bayou-inflected patois, Leto recalls what first drew him to Rayon. "She had a really great heart, what an amazing creature!"
David Lamble: What was your weight loss like?
Jared Leto: It changes the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you think, the way people treat you. I did it once before, for Requiem, so I had some experience, but it's still really challenging.
What help did you get creating Rayon?
I met trans kids, people who had been living their lives as women for decades. I don't think I could have brought this character to life without them.
Was the supermarket scene, where Ron chokes his old friend, the hardest to pull off?
The supermarket scene was actually very difficult. It was always a concern of mine how to walk that fine line and not play some stereotypical cliche: the drag queen who's dancing on the table with a feather boa, running out of the room with a snappy one-liner. But also, the scene with the father was very intense and challenging emotionally [a scene where the dying Rayon begs money for Ron's club from his cold-hearted banker dad]. I remember sitting in front of the mirror, putting makeup on, thinking about dying.
Describe the arc between you and Matthew's character.
She knows that Ron's got a big heart underneath the bravado. She's also desperate for love from any and all. She was neglected by her father and always looking for a male figure in her life. Rayon and Ron both need each other.
Did you shoot chronologically, or in disjointed pieces like most movies?
It wasn't as bad as some, but it was disjointed. There were some days where I had to change looks three or four times, and I would be in the makeup chair three or four hours out of the day.
How did you land that juicy part in Requiem for a Dream?
I begged and pleaded with Darren Aronofsky. He was great at stringing you along. He would call me in the middle of the night, ask me a couple of questions, and I'd tell him, "Nobody's going to play this part like I will, no-one else in the world. I'm your guy, bet on me!" Eventually he did, but it took some convincing.