Dallas Buyers Club

Overview

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, an AIDS patient diagnosed in the mid-1980s: a time when HIV/AIDS pathogenesis and treatments were poorly understood, and the disease subjected to stigmatization. As part of an ongoing experimental AIDS treatment movement, Woodroof smuggled unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into Texas to treat his symptoms—where he 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, and Rayon, were composite roles created from 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.