Ben Affleck completed his absolutely incredible career turnaround last year when his third directorial effort, Argo, took home the Academy Award for Best Picture, and now Matthew McConaughey has managed to achieve a very similar feat. After nearly a decade of being trapped in thankless, critically-reviled romantic comedies, the Texas star has rejuvenated his life as an actor and tonight has won the Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role thanks to his performance in Dallas Buyers Club.
A passion project of the stars that took many years to get made, the Jean-Marc Vallee-directed drama stars McConaughey as Ron Woodruff, an electrician and bull rider who learns that he has been diagnosed with the AIDS virus and has only been given a month to live. Despite the lack of available medicine on the market and being shunned from all of his friends, Ron becomes determined to keep living, and finds a way to do so south of the border. With access to Mexican medications that were denied by the FDA, the protagonist suddenly discovers that he is getting healthier, and wants to share his discovery with the others who are suffering from the disease. Teaming up with a pre-op transsexual named Rayon (played by Oscar winner Jared Leto), Ron opens up what is called a Buyers Club in Texas, allowing him to sell memberships to AIDS patients and provide them with all of the meds they need. Of course, this action is frowned upon by both the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies who want to take him down. Get better acquainted with the film with the trailer below:
McConaughey’s career turn-around may seem sudden, but he’s actually been building towards it for the last couple of years now. It really first began back in 2011 when he returned to the courtroom for the first time since A Time To Kill to make The Lincoln Lawyer. After collecting critical praise from that little venture, he went on to get even more thanks to roles in Richard Linklater’s Bernie and William Friedkin’s vicious Killer Joe. With performances in movies like Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, Jeff Nichols' Mud, and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street also filling out his recent resume as well, it’s not hard to acknowledge that he is on one hell of a hot streak right now.
Oh, and did I mention the amazing work that he’s been doing on HBO’s True Detective?
Coming up later this year McConaughey will be starring as the lead of a brilliant ensemble cast in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. That film won’t be out until November 7th, but you can watch its first teaser trailer below:
