'Elisnore' TIFF review: Andrew Scott mesmerizes as Ian Charleson in heartfelt drama
Courtesy of Focus Features/TIFF
Cinema has spent decades grappling with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, from “Longtime Companion” and “Philadelphia” to “Angels in America” and “Dallas Buyers Club.” These stories helped draw attention to a public-health crisis that governments ignored, but they also contributed to a period when queer characters seemingly had to suffer for their stories to be taken seriously. For a long time, Hollywood struggled to depict gay men without making illness, persecution or death central to their lives.
Simon Stone’s “Elsinore” initially sounds like another entry in that genre, but this moving portrait of Scottish actor Ian Charleson is far more interested in how he lived than how he died. Charleson was diagnosed with HIV in 1986 and, three years later, stepped into the role of Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while seriously ill. Stone does not minimize what Charleson endured, but he also refuses to define him entirely by his diagnosis. The movie can be heartbreaking, especially with Andrew Scott giving such a vulnerable performance, but it is also cheeky, funny and remarkably warm.
When the film begins in 1989, Charleson’s career has stalled. His performance in the Oscar-winning “Chariots of Fire” made him recognizable, and he followed it with a role in another Best Picture winner, “Gandhi,” but the substantial offers have largely dried up. He hates the thought that his legacy might begin and end with “Chariots of Fire,” frequently complaining that everyone remembers the theme music more than the actors. At the same time, his health is deteriorating and he knows he has little time left to change how he will be remembered.
His pursuit of mainstream stardom has also caused tension within London’s queer community. His friend Derek Jarman ridicules him for presenting himself as a straight leading man when open representation matters more than ever. The disagreement gives the movie another layer because Charleson’s choices were not made in a vacuum. He wanted to work in an industry that could reject him for being gay, and an HIV diagnosis would have only made that discrimination worse.
Stone wisely does not show Charleson receiving his diagnosis. By the time we meet him, he has lived with it for three years and understands what may be coming. He spends time in Soho gay bars, offering comfort to friends and seeking advice about how to continue. Casual conversations about the “polka-dot stage,” when lesions begin appearing as the illness progresses are common. Charleson routinely checks his body for signs, and when a lesion appears on his forehead, the seriousness of his condition becomes impossible to ignore.
Scott is terrific at capturing that fear without turning every scene into an acting showcase. His Charleson is affectionate, vain, funny and deeply stubborn. He understands that he is dying, but he does not want that knowledge to dictate how he spends whatever time remains. Scott finds the humor and frustration inside that conflict, allowing Charleson to remain a complicated human being rather than turning him into a symbol of noble suffering.
His condition worsens at the worst possible moment. Daniel Day-Lewis has abruptly abandoned the National Theatre’s production of “Hamlet,” and director Richard Eyre, played by Johnny Flynn, asks Charleson to take over. The role requires tremendous stamina, including nearly four hours onstage, six performances a week and strenuous sword fighting. It would be difficult for a healthy actor, let alone someone as sick as Charleson, but that is also what makes the opportunity impossible for him to refuse. This could be his chance to prove that “Chariots of Fire” was not the peak of his career.
Olivia Colman plays the doctor trying to keep him healthy enough to perform, and their relationship becomes one of the movie’s strongest elements. She repeatedly urges him to slow down and take his condition seriously, while Charleson insists that surviving longer means little if he has to abandon the work that gives his life purpose. “It’s the quality I am after, not the quantity,” he tells her when she warns that “Hamlet” might kill him faster. It is the clearest expression of how Charleson views the decision. Acting is not getting in the way of his life. It is his life.
Stephen Beresford’s screenplay is also careful to depict Charleson’s friends as people still trying to preserve some sense of normalcy. They joke, dance, flirt and fight even as the epidemic continues taking people from their community. “Elsinore” understands that perseverance did not always take the form of public activism. Sometimes it meant going out, finding moments of joy and refusing to allow fear to erase the person you had always been.
The movie is less successful when it comes to dramatizing Charleson’s work on “Hamlet.” Stone repeatedly tells us how much the role means to him, but we rarely get to watch him explore the character, struggle with the material or grow into the performance. The final stretch becomes a collection of short moments rather than the fully developed culmination the story needs. Considering that Charleson’s “Hamlet” was remembered as one of the great performances of its era, the movie should spend more time showing us why. That distance keeps “Elsinore” from reaching the emotional depth of something like “Philadelphia,” even if its quieter approach remains effective.
The emotional moments still land, largely because Scott gives Charleson the interior life that the movie occasionally keeps at arm’s length. Some of the most affecting scenes involve his decision to hide his illness. When encouraged to disclose it, Charleson refuses because he does not want people to pity him or assume he was given the role because he was dying. He wants the work to speak for itself. “They will know when I am dead,” he says. After his death, Charleson requested that AIDS be publicly identified as the cause, helping to confront the stigma surrounding the disease at a time when many people still preferred not to discuss it.
That decision brings the movie’s ideas together. “Elsinore” does not sensationalize Charleson’s illness or use the AIDS crisis as an easy route to tragedy. It shows a man trying to protect his identity, his dignity and his work while a community around him struggles to survive. The film could have gone further in exploring the performance that ultimately defined his legacy, but Scott ensures Charleson is remembered as more than another victim of the epidemic. He wanted audiences to judge him by what he accomplished onstage, and “Elsinore,” at its best, lets the work do the talking.
Grade: B+
ELSINORE played at the Toronto International Film Festival. Focus Features will release the film in select theaters on November 20.
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