Another entrant in the “based on a true story” movie sweepstakes is this fact-based drama centered on the efforts of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) to survive his exposure to HIV in the 1980s.  Apart from a few visual anachronisms, the film is a period piece detailing the wild sex-and-drugs atmosphere that was prevalent shortly before the HIV and AIDS era changed the world.  It depicts how unprepared doctors and pharmaceutical companies found themselves when thousands of people suddenly needed their finest efforts to stay alive, and a bitter undercurrent of the narrative chronicles their ignorance and greed as good people lay dying.

Upon hearing his diagnosis, Woodroof denies it, but finally comes to believe it as his body fails him.  He then does what most patients should: he researches the disease and takes active steps to fight back using any means possible.  His own constitution and good medical care saves him, and his disease becomes his calling.  Woodroof imports drugs the FDA refuses to approve and sells them to other HIV patients who need them.  The FDA doesn’t like it and closes in, but Woodroof continues to fight.

Jean-Marc Vallee’s film is realistic and morally ambiguous.  Woodroof is as the FDA describes him, a drug dealer, yet the drugs he is dealing are — if used individually– approved by that same organization.  Taken together, they help alleviate the pain and symptoms of a terrible disease.  Yet, because he has broken their rules, Woodroof is a governmental target.  Some doctors are seen as worthy, others not so much.  The most worthy doctor is in Mexico, having lost his license, yet still making every effort to treat the sick and limit the disease’s deadly effects.  And through it all, money talks, whether it funds the purchase of drugs overseas or the legal defense when the government tries to permanently stop Woodroof’s enterprise.

Vallee’s film is well made, though obviously on a tiny budget.  McConaughey is gaunt and terrific as the reluctant hustler; this movie and Mud from earlier in the year comprise his finest hours as an actor.  Jared Leto is a revelation as a flamboyant character named Rayon.  Jennifer Garner seems miscast as a sympathetic doctor, and Steve Zahn has little to do as a sympathetic cop.  It’s an actor’s movie, and if that intrigues you, I recommend you see it.  This is more of an intellectual movie than an emotional one, despite its subject.  I think it is good, but not great, yet I’m not sure what would make it better.  It is an “important” film with some excellent performances that will be nominated for awards, yet it seems to lack something which would make it great.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  8 December 2013.