For me..
For me The Dallas Buyer's Club was the hardest movie I have ever watched.
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And I wish everyone would see it.
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Dallas Buyer's Club is a great movie, if not an uplifting one. Matthew McConaughy plays a straight Texan who gets AIDS (either through a transfusion or unprotected sex with a female drug addict, it's neither clear nor important).
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Frustrated at the lack of meds available, it tells the true story of this man who ends up getting some help in Mexico, and then figuring out a way to sell those same unapproved drugs in Dallas to HIV patients - who are mainly gay.
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It is neither sugar coated, or exploitatively graphic (there is only a little straight sex, and we don't watch Matthew die) I don't think there is a gay kiss in the whole movie. Which doesn't mean there isn't emotion - crazy ass emotion.
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It is just is the late 80's and sometimes life sucked. A lot of people and friends were dying. It seemed everyone was wasting away.
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It was emotionally wrenching for me. I didn't really watch Mark die. I was too busy taking care of him. I know that I purposely focussed on getting the right food, hooking up his IV, making sure he sleep right, that he didn't do anything wrong and stayed healthy. You have to, if you step back and watch what happened to this man you love, well you would collapse in despair. Instead you (like McConaughy in the film) take the little wins when you can.
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In the movie Matthew isn't looking for love or honor or anything except a way to make it a couple more days or a week or a month or a year.
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| Mark - who taught me how strong I am and how to really love someone else. I wouldn't be able to love Ed as honestly as I do, if it wasn't for him. |
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And when you see Jennifer Garner as a doctor who can't take it after a while and does the brave thing. You will know why I love and adore my doctor so very very much. Dr. Gary Cohan is that character, except years earlier. He came to California to work with AIDS patients when most people were ignoring it. AIDS tested people in a way few things ever have and hopefully ever will again.
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Fourteen of my very very good friends died. Hundreds more died whom I knew casually (I was a bartender). No one "passed away"from AIDS, everyone fought it like hell.
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And we all watched them get sick and skinny and know the end was coming. You can see that in this movie. The weight drops, the strength fades, but the eyes burn. The soul doesn't give up. And those of us that didn't die, well we all changed somehow. Life is more precious. Bullshit is less tolerable. Love and friendship is more important that nearly anything else. Death has a way of focussing on the critical, Death has a way of highlighting how lucky I was to have had Mark in my life AND how lucky I am to have Ed in my life.
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No joke. You get one turn on the wheel - live like it counts.