Andrew Scott continues to prove that he is one of our greatest living film actors in Elsinore, the true story of another great actor, Ian Charleson (Scott). Having played the lead role of Eric Liddell in the iconic film Chariots of Fire in 1981, Charleson found himself out of work in the late 80s. The film makes a running joke (no pun intended) of the theme music from Chariots being more popular than Ian as an actor, but, like Charleson himself, it does eschew this frustration in favor of a galvanizing display of artistic fortitude.
Charleson was diagnosed with HIV in 1986 and played Hamlet at the National Theatre in London while coping with the disease in his late thirties and early forties. He passed away due to AIDS seven weeks after his final performance. The Hamlet opportunity arose after Daniel Day-Lewis infamously abandoned the production. The name of the film comes from the castle setting of Shakespeare’s play, and it’s very fitting, as the people around Ian seem to make a fortress with which he guards himself as he endeavors the artistic achievement. Smartly, director Simon Stone and screenwriter Stephen Beresford keep an eye to the overall impact of AIDS and the horror which was the AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s as Ian moves through the rehearsal process. The influential doctor Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman) comes to understand Ian’s desire to play the part — health consequences be damned — as he experiences the ups and downs of his personal trajectory with the disease during rehearsals.
Scott is simply sensational here. Similarly to his phenomenal work in All of Us Strangers, he delivers this cool but honest brand of snark-tinged sentimentality which he seems to have been born to portray. In his hands, Ian isn’t a victim; he’s an actor. Very little will keep him from that stage, no matter what stage of the disease he’s experiencing. The texturing of Scott’s performance isn’t quite matched by the film’s direction, however. It’s by no means clunky or emotionally unearned at any point, but there are those elements — the sweeping strings, the quick cuts, the over-reliance on montage — which will leave many viewers with the words “Oscar bait” on their lips. It’s unfortunate, since for any theatre lover this story is genuinely important and interesting. Don’t get me wrong: it’s a sturdily made film, but it’s nothing like as revolutionary an artistic act as the performance Charleson gave.
In any case, Elsinore is still worth seeing, and worth seeing with a crowd, I’d say. Beresford’s script matches Scott’s snark skills such that there is a dark-comedy laugh about every two minutes. The balance Beresford displays is even more vital, however. I especially appreciated Ian’s in-hospital chat with his parents, seemingly coming out to them for the very first time and telling them of his diagnosis and the full scope of what he’d been experiencing. As Ian’s father, Peter Mullan has a particularly heartbreaking moment stemming from a sense of masculine restraint. Again, perhaps there are ways in which the film could have shown more or less restraint itself, but Scott’s performance and the story and history at its core make it well worth a watch. | George Napper
Elsinore was featured at the 2026 St. Louis International Film Festival. Further information about the festival, which runs Nov. 5-15, is available on the festival website.
