there are countless people who would do the same as the caricature this movie crafts of Ron Woodroof—move exactly the same as you ever have, if not even more outlandishly and brash, doing anything and everything in your believed-to-be final days that benefits you and only you. all before learning nothing, moving nowhere, once it turns out you're still here for just a little bit longer. but creating that character, molding out of a real, complex person someone who shows only an iota of care across this film's entire runtime, and expecting that to be enough to make its ending anything in the same galaxy as a 'meaningful' retelling is almost disgusting.

sure—it shows us that nothing matters, untold numbers of people will still die, the companies engaging in death profiteering and its extensions get to keep it all, and the world keeps retching in place. but why make it stick so noxiously onto its feigned protagonist too? why make all but Rayon for the most part completely insufferable for the vast majority of the film (or, rather, at every point they shouldn't be, when it finally seems like they can finally break their own cycle)? because if there's anything i know, it's that it doesn't have to be—actually, it cannot be—both. there is always someone moving forward, even if everyone and everything around them is engaging in, actively, maliciously, the opposite.

we all want to get the most out of the 2,557 days we have. but if this wants to create this falsified nothing-man out of vague southern perceptions and bigotries, don't gaslight the audience into thinking that its few disappearances with Rayon morph it into any kind of triumph. the needle only shudders a few times for this false Ron—even if his situation, in all reality, is soul-shredding and horrifying.

and to harp on this as little as possible: Jared Leto should not have been in this position to play this Rayon, even if him and McConaughey did the best they absolutely could within and without of what was given to them. for Leto's role, Cillian Murphy is the analogue, the exception that proves the rule in Breakfast on Pluto; there was none of the tact given in that film here, whether given to, seen through, or portrayed with Rayon. despite that she is far and away the most interesting and amiable character—heart-breakingly ephemeral in life, perennial in humanity.

this movie is not an anti-hero period drama, it's an anti-drama. there are no roles, no creation, no place, no people; no one grows, no one dies, because there's never anyone who lives in this nowhere. at least it can play that note irritatingly well, over and over again.