Dallas Roberts

In telling this remarkable true story, director Jean-Marc Vallee (The Young Victoria) and his gifted cast keep the characters and events so grounded that we can't help but get caught up in their story. The film never asks for our sympathy, but it earns it over and over again as it explores a disgraceful period in American history when businesses and the government essentially condemned millions to death by withholding proper treatment for HIV and Aids.

It begins in 1985, when homophobic womaniser Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) is told that he has just a month to live. Refusing to believe that he has the same disease that has just killed Rock Hudson, he ignores his doctors (Garner and O'Hare) to find his own supply of AZT, which makes him even more ill. So he heads to Mexico to find a range of treatment the US government has refused to approve, and he imports them himself, creating a members' club to subvert the law. This requires that he set his deep-seated prejudice aside so he can work with the transgendered Rayon (Leto). But a government lawyer (O'Neill) is determined to shut him down.

Yes, it's deeply infuriating to watch the American system try so hard to stop Woodruff from saving lives. Government officials continually outlaw his effective treatments so they can pawn off the toxic, over-priced AZT instead. So Woodruff travels the world in search of new medicine, and his business of course takes off. Vallee cleverly cuts through the 1980s period details to reveal Woodruff's earthy tenacity and an overpowering sense of humanity.

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Ottway (Neeson) works as a wolf-sniper for a petrol company in the far reaches of Alaska, but is struggling with thoughts of suicide because he misses his wife (Openshaw) so much. Then on a flight to Anchorage, the plane is hit by a severe storm and goes down in the middle of nowhere. There are a handful of survivors, and Ottway soon becomes the leader when they are menaced by howling, growling wolves. Knowing they'd be safer in the treeline, he leads five other men from one peril to another.

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A few years later, after the deaths of both Carlton and his mother, Bobby is a puppy-eyed teenager who inherited Carlton's magnetic personality and utter lack of guile, which is what attracts another teen, the gawkier Jonathan, to him. After his dad dies, Bobby moves permanently into the Glover household as a sort of unofficial adopted brother to Jonathan - except that they're brothers who occasionally make out and smoke joints with Mrs. Glover (Sissy Spacek). The rather uptight Jonathan (he wears glasses and has braces, you see) can't handle Bobby's openness and is more than a little jealous of how eagerly her mother has embraced him into their family, and their romantic relationship stalls.

Continue reading: A Home At The End Of The World Review