Dallas Buyers Club Dvd

Dallas Buyers Club is a 2013 American biographical drama film written by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack, and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. The film tells the story of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), an AIDS patient diagnosed in the mid 1980s when HIV/AIDS treatments were under-researched, while the disease was not understood and highly stigmatized. As part of the experimental AIDS treatment movement, he smuggled unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas for treating his symptoms, and distributed them to fellow people with AIDS by establishing the “Dallas Buyers Club” while facing opposition from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Two fictional supporting characters, Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner), and Rayon (Jared Leto), were composite roles created from the writers’ interviews with transgender AIDS patients, activists, and doctors. Presidential biographer and PEN-USA winner Bill Minutaglio wrote the first magazine profile of The Dallas Buyers Club in 1992. The article, which featured interviews with Woodroof and also recreated his dramatic international exploits, attracted widespread attention from filmmakers and journalists.

Plot

In July 1985, promiscuous Dallas electrician and rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) is diagnosed with AIDS and given 30 days to live. As a heterosexual, he initially refuses to accept the diagnosis but remembers having unprotected sex with a woman who was an intravenous drug user a couple years prior. He is soon ostracized by family and friends who mistakenly assume he contracted AIDS from homosexual relations. He gets fired from his job, and is eventually evicted from his home. At the hospital, he is tended to by Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner), who tells him that they are testing a drug called zidovudine (AZT), an antiretroviral drug which is thought to prolong the life of AIDS patients—and is the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for testing on humans. Saks informs him that in the clinical trials, half the patients receive the drug and the other half a placebo, as this is the only way they can determine if the drug is working.

Woodroof bribes a hospital worker to get him AZT. As soon as he begins taking it, he finds his health deteriorating (exacerbated by his cocaine use). When he returns to the hospital, he meets Rayon (Jared Leto), a drug addicted, HIV-positive trans woman, to whom he is initially hostile. As his health worsens, he drives to a makeshift Mexican hospital to get more AZT. The facility is run by a Dr. Vass, who has had his American medical license revoked because aspects of his work with AIDS patients had violated US regulations. Vass tells Woodroof that the AZT is “poisonous” and “kills every cell it comes into contact with”. He instead prescribes a cocktail of drugs and nutritional supplements centered on ddC and the protein peptide T, which are not yet approved in the US. Three months later, Woodroof finds his health much improved. It occurs to him that he could make money by importing the drugs and selling them to other HIV-positive patients. Since the drugs alone are not illegal, he is able to get them over the border by masquerading as a priest and swearing that they are for personal use. Meanwhile, Saks also begins to notice the negative effects of AZT, but is told by her supervisor, Dr. Sevard, that it cannot be discontinued.

Over the next year, Woodroof begins selling the drugs on the street, at gay nightclubs, and at 80s discotheque bars. He comes back into contact with Rayon, with whom he reluctantly sets up business since she can bring in more customers. The pair establish the “Dallas Buyers Club”, charging $400 per month for membership, and it becomes extremely popular. He gradually begins to respect Rayon as a friend. When Woodroof has a heart attack caused by a recently acquired dose of interferon, Sevard learns of the club and the alternative medication. He is angry that it is interrupting his trial, while the FDA confiscates the interferon and threatens to have Woodroof arrested. Saks agrees that there are benefits to AIDS medicine buyers clubs (of which there are several around the country) but feels powerless to change anything. The processes that the FDA uses to research, test and approve drugs are seen as flawed and a part of the problem for AIDS patients. Saks and Woodroof strike up a friendship.

The FDA gets a warrant to raid the Buyers Club, but can ultimately do nothing but fine Woodroof. In 1987, the FDA changes its regulations, making any unapproved drug illegal. As the Club runs out of funds, Rayon, who is addicted to cocaine, begs her father for money and tells Woodroof that she has sold her life insurance policy to raise money. Woodroof travels to Mexico and gets more of the peptide T. Upon return, Ron finds out that Rayon has died after being taken to the hospital. Saks is also upset by her death, and is asked to resign when the hospital discovers she has been linking patients with the Buyers Club, having learned that AZT trials previously conducted in France had proven the drug ineffective. She refuses, and insists that she will have to be fired instead.

As time passes, Woodroof shows more compassion towards gay, lesbian, and transgender members of the club and making money becomes less of a concern; his priority is provision of the drugs. Peptide T gets increasingly difficult to acquire, and in late 1987 he files a lawsuit against the FDA. He seeks the legal right to take the protein, which has been confirmed as non-toxic but is still not approved. The judge is sympathetic toward him and admonishes the FDA, but lacks the power to do anything. As the film ends, on-screen text reveals that the FDA later allowed Woodroof to take peptide T for personal use and that he died of the disease’s effects in 1992, seven years later than his doctors initially predicted.

Cast

A profile picture of a middle-aged man with brown color, smiling at something.
McConaughey at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival premiere
Matthew McConaughey as Ron Woodroof, a real-life AIDS patient who smuggled unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas when he found them effective at improving his symptoms. In an interview with CBS News’ Lee Cowan in February 2014, McConaughey said that he selected the role because he thought it was not just a normal story, but it was a story of a “wild man.” McConaughey was born and raised near Dallas, so he was very familiar with the culture. Additionally, he thought that the script was “incredibly human, with no sentimentality.” McConaughey lost nearly 50 pounds (22 kilograms) to play Woodroof in the film.
Jennifer Garner as Dr. Eve Saks, who treats AIDS patients like Woodroof and Rayon. Upon Garner’s casting, after reading the script she expressed: “I had heard about it, and I had seen pictures of Matthew losing weight. And really couldn’t imagine how I was going to do it, and was so happy at home.”
Jared Leto as Rayon, a fictional trans woman with HIV who helps Woodroof. To accurately portray his role, Leto lost 30 pounds (13 kilograms), shaved his eyebrows and waxed his entire body. He stated the portrayal was grounded in his meeting transgender people while researching the role. He stated that, when he moved to Los Angeles in 1991, he had a roommate who died of AIDS. He “[worked] on Rayon’s voice for weeks” and refused to break character during filming; director Vallée stated: “I don’t know Leto. Jared never showed me Jared.”