When they cut six months out of the film, you're left wondering why nothing in that period of time was worth showing as opposed to the events that are shown. The constant skips in time were strange and occasionally confusing. There was no narrative flow to the edits. Since any pretense of thematic depth was dropped a third of the way through, there's no reason why we're being shown any of the scenes that we see, outside of basic plot development. The construction of the film was bizarre. As it stands, the debate that the film presents is so obviously skewed that it's pointless. If they had shown even one scene of negative consequences to Ron's actions, it would have made the movie far more ethically complex. Even when the FDA agents seemed to make some decent points about the dangers of Woodroof's operation, the film quickly pointed out that Woodroof was helping so many people, that he knew what he was doing, and that the FDA was basically Satan for not letting people use experimental drugs. The film presented Woodroof's battle with the FDA as so black-and-white that it hurt. When Rayon tragically dies, Woodroof feels sad about it but after that she has no impact on the events of the film. I'm mostly willing to accept a film about the AIDS epidemic that focuses on the struggles of a straight guy, but the fact that the film's primary gay character is little more than a prop to help the straight character learn a lesson is offensively lazy. Rayon is basically there to teach Woodroof a valuable lesson, and that really rubbed me the wrong way. Woodroof is whatever he needs to be to make each scene advance the story, and it never gels into a coherent character. Is he bigoted or compassionate? Is he clever and quick-witted or is he a loose-cannon? You could argue that this makes him a complex character, but it felt more like the work of a schizophrenic screenwriter. The film failed to get a handle on Woodroof's character, so he seemed like a totally different person from one scene to the next. Not that they tell it very well, but I'll get to that. The rest of the movie is entirely plot-based, as if the filmmakers wanted to get the character stuff out of the way so that they could just tell the story uninhibited. He doesn't progress in any significant way past that point. Woodroof's character arc (he's a homophobe, he meets Rayon, he's mostly not a homophobe anymore) is over about 40 minutes into the film. To me, it felt totally unfocused and meandering. Here were some of my issues, and I'm curious to see the response.
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