This week’s movie releases

The fall and rise of Matthew McConaughey seems complete. Many are the lightweight stars who yearn to be taken seriously; few are those who achieve it so emphatically, escaping from the mire of soppy romcoms and feeble actioners by force of more astute judgment and sheer effort. His recent Oscar marked the crowning of that process, which took him from the lows of The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past to a string of memorable turns in the likes of The Lincoln Lawyer, Killer Joe, The Paperboy, Mud, Magic Mike and The Wolf of Wall Street, not to mention acclaimed TV series True Detective, whose first series has just concluded on HBO in the US and Canal+ in Spain.

So in short, Dallas Buyers Club, the movie that won him that Best Actor gong, could hardly arrive in Spanish theaters at a better time. McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof, an unreconstructed male and real-life Texan cowboy who was forced to curb his hard-partying ways when diagnosed with HIV and given just 30 days to live in 1985, a time when the virus was still little understood. Ostracized by his friends and with no access to effective treatment, he bands together with a group of similarly afflicted misfits and outcasts – the kind of people he would previously have given a wide berth – to set up a buyers’ club to bring in alternative drugs from every corner of the globe, by any means possible. Jennifer Garner also provides solid support in Québécois director Jean-Marc Vallée’s drama.

Also out this week, Labor Day unfolds over one long holiday weekend in the life of reclusive mother Adele (Kate Winslet) and her 13-year-old son Henry. Out shopping one day, the pair encounters the rough and rugged Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin), who persuades them to take him in, only to reveal himself as an escaped convict. Based on the novel by US writer Joyce Maynard, the film is directed by Up in the Air and Juno’s Jason Reitman.

Spanish movie 8 apellidos vascos stars Dani Rovira as Rafa, a young Andalusian charmer forced to leave his native Seville, travel to the Basque Country and pass himself off as a local in pursuit of the first girl (Clara Lago) to resist his amorous advances. Karra Elejalde and Carmen Machi also feature in this latest romcom from Emilio Martínez-Lázaro (The Other Side of the Bed).

A straight story

Winner of the Golden Shell for Best Film at last year’s San Sebastián Film Festival Venezuelan drama Pelo Malo (Bad Hair), directed by Mariana Rondón, centers on a nine-year-old Caracas boy’s obsession with getting his curly hair straightened to look like a pop star for his school yearbook – a wish that beings him into conflict with his struggling single mom.

Another award winner – of the prize for Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Goyas – Pilar Pérez Solanos’ Las maestras de la República uses dramatic recreations, archive footage and interviews to tell the story of the committed teachers who fought for women’s rights and helped modernize the education system during the Second Spanish Republic.

Finally Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux star in Christophe Gans’ new French-language retelling of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, which also features Eduardo Noriega providing Spanish support.