Matthew McConnaughy’s Oscar nomination for Dallas Buyers Club is not only right and just for this particular project but a fitting tribute to an actor whose past eight films show a consistently excellent body of work.
His work has often shown his excellent body, a physique that he has put through the furnace of art to show the ravages of AIDS for his portrayal of pharmaceutical activist, Ron Woodroof.
Certainly more sinner than saint, Ron was a hustler and a huckster, a homophobic whoremonger who scammed, snorted and screwed his way through life before he contracted the scourge of a generation, HIV.
Defiantly in denial of his diagnosis under the mistaken belief that the plague only attacks homosexuals, his deteriorating health and social ostracism from his peers forces him to rethink his predicament.
Sick and stigmatised this big swinging smelling of Stilton Stetson wearing stud dreams up a scheme to circumvent Federal Drug Administration bureaucracy that prohibits alternative treatments to the virus and turns from self serving sinner to self serving saint.
Desperate circumstances throw Ron into a business partnership with a trans gender person, Rayon, that previously would have been unthinkable, but sexual orientation aside, the pair are quite alike in world view.
Jared Leto has similarly been nominated for an Oscar for his performance as Rayon, a scene stealing cross dresser. Leto leads a stella supporting cast which includes Jennifer Garner as both Ron and Rayon’s consulting physician, Griffin Dunn as a de registered doctor dealing drugs and therapies beneficial but unapproved by American authorities, and Michael O’Neill as the granite face and heart of federal bureaucracy, Richard Barkley.
A beautifully crafted script by Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack, fine film editing by John Mac McMurphy and Martin Pensa, and the make up and hairstyling wizardry of Adruitha Lee and Robin Matthews add to Dallas Buyers Club swag of Oscar nominations, all vital components to the emotional impact of this marvellous movie.
McMurphy, by the way, is the furphy of director Jean-Marc Vallee who notches up another terrific picture in the wake of Cafe de Flores, Young Victoria and CRAZY, and it’s a shame he has not been honoured with an Oscar nod as director. At least he can take some pride and comfort that the film has been included in the Best Film category.