Dallas Buyers Club is a 2013 biographical drama directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and starring Matthew McConaughey as Ron Woodroof, a Dallas electrician and rodeo rider who is diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in the mid-1980s. The film follows Woodroof’s transformation from a deeply prejudiced outsider into the driving force behind an underground network that brings alternative and unapproved treatments to AIDS patients who have been failed by the medical system and the authorities. With Jared Leto as Rayon and Jennifer Garner as Dr. Eve Saks, the film combines personal collapse, anger and survival with a broader portrait of the AIDS crisis in Reagan-era America.
Although the story is rooted very specifically in Dallas, the film was shot mainly in Louisiana, with New Orleans serving as the principal filming base and Baton Rouge also used during production. That gives the film an interesting tension between setting and production reality: it is unmistakably a Texas story, but its visual world was built in older Louisiana streets, interiors and neighbourhood spaces that could be adapted to resemble 1980s Dallas. The production was completed very quickly, over just 25 days, and that stripped-down approach is reflected in the film’s raw, immediate atmosphere, which makes the locations feel lived-in rather than polished. Rather than turning Dallas into a glossy period reconstruction, the film uses modest Southern urban environments to create a tougher, more intimate version of the city and the era.
Oasis Motel
Oasis Motel in Gretna, Louisiana, appears in "Dallas Buyers Club". In the film, the motel becomes one of the places connected to Ron’s underground operation.
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