PLOT: The true story of actor Ian Charleson (Andrew Scott), who, as he was dying of AIDS, embarked on the mammoth undertaking of playing Hamlet at the National Theatre.
REVIEW: The story of Ian Charleson playing Hamlet only weeks before he died of AIDS is one that I’ve long been fascinated by. I remember reading a piece written by Ian McKellen, who attended the first performance, where he maintained that it was the greatest Hamlet he’d ever seen. Charleson, for those who may not know him, was one of the stars of Chariots of Fire, a movie that seemed to set him on a path to big-screen stardom in America. It never quite happened, although he also had a big role in Gandhi and led the cult classic Dario Argento film Opera in 1987.
When we meet Charleson, as played by Andrew Scott, in Elsinore, he’s still a jobbing actor, but one who feels his promise has never been fulfilled, with him hoping against hope that he’ll one day get the opportunity to truly prove himself. Everywhere he goes, he’s greeted by people humming Vangelis’ Chariots of Fire theme (he complains that people remember the music more than his performance), but he’s still relatively successful, being well-respected by his loving acting community. But he also lives with an HIV diagnosis, knowing that at any moment his time could be up and checking his body every morning for signs of Kaposi’s sarcoma. One day, he finds a welt and realizes his time is coming to an end. But he’s also just been offered his dream job, playing Hamlet at the National Theatre (after Daniel Day-Lewis had a mid-performance meltdown and quit), and despite his diagnosis and the pleas of his doctor (memorably played by Olivia Colman), he decides to go ahead, even if it will certainly cut his time short.
Elsinore has some thematic similarities to another movie playing at TIFF this year, The Man I Love. Both movies are about men dying of AIDS, but while the latter is more about one man’s rage at the dying of the light, Elsinore takes a different, more uplifting approach. Charleson knows he’s going to die and has accepted it. But he wants to maximize the time he has left, and his eventual triumph as Hamlet makes this an inspiring true story, as he was truly a man to admire.
Elsinore gives Andrew Scott some incredible material, with him able to play the charismatic, fun and kind Charleson, as well as perform Hamlet, and it’s a part that will certainly put him up there in the Oscar conversation. He makes Charleson a warm character we enjoy spending time with, giving us entrée into his warm life, where he’s best friends with a casting agent, Patsy (Billie Piper), and is a kind of surrogate father/confidante to her teenage daughter, Alice (Sadie Soverall). He’s well-liked in the theatrical community, who are aware of his double life as a closeted gay man, even if they are unaware of his diagnosis. The film does a good job depicting Charleson’s need, at the time, to stay in the closet so that he can vanish into the work, even if his former friend Derek Jarman (David Dawson), for whom he played an early queer role, thinks he needs to go public with his diagnosis and sexuality.
Yet, the movie also doesn’t shy away from the fact that Charleson, in some cases, might have closed himself off too much, with excellent work from Peter Mullan and Georgie Glen as his parents, who prove to be immediately accepting when they learn the truth (Mullan’s breakdown scene is among the film’s most wrenching moments). It all adds to an extremely moving third act as Charleson, in full decline, finds the strength to go ahead and play the part that will make him a legend in British theatre, at the likely cost of his own life.
While we know from the start how this will end, Elsinore is ultimately an upbeat, inspiring film, with director Simon Stone (The Dig and The Woman in Cabin 10) delivering his strongest work to date, and one that will certainly earn him some much-deserved acclaim. It certainly ranks up there with Scott’s greatest roles, taking its place next to Moriarty in Sherlock, the famous Hot Priest in Fleabag, and All of Us Strangers. He remains one of the most versatile and powerful actors of his generation, and this is a heck of a showcase.
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