Today, if anyone knows the name Ian Charleson, it’s for his leading role in 1981 Best Picture winner, Chariots of Fire…MAYBE for co-starring with Ben Kingsley in Gandhi, another one to claim the top prize. In Simon Stone’s heartbreakingly soulful Elsinore, Charleson hates being recognized only for these things or for the unforgettable theme music. He’s an actor, and always longed to play the ultimate role, Hamlet, on the big stage at the British National Theatre. As fate would have it, Daniel Day-Lewis would go storming off the stage in the middle of production, but much like the title character in Shakespeare’s iconic play, Charleson has his own questions of life and death to grapple with.
The openly gay Charleson had been diagnosed with HIV, but by 1989 when he was asked to step in to play Hamlet, he had full-blown AIDS. His friend and the play’s director Richard Eyre (played with tremendous empathy by Johnny Flynn) knew what was happening, but gave Charleson this chance to fulfill this dream. Charleson knows the physical toll this role will take on him, but he decides to risk it all despite stern warnings from his doctor, trailblazer Margaret Johnson, played by Olivia Colman.
I was trying to think of the last AIDS drama that I had seen. When the disease was still new and mysterious, and at its most deadly, these films were everywhere and they were always about death. Stephen Beresford’s screenplay is about life, and maximizing every day rather than wallowing in despair. It becomes increasingly difficult as Charleson watches the people he is closest to, such as his former love Georgie (Luke Thompson), get sick all around him.
Elsinore follows Charleson through all of the stages of grief, beginning when he sees the first physical signs of his decline. We also see his growing frustration with Hollywood and the crappy action movie roles he was being offered, when all he really wanted to do was act on the London stage. We see his interactions with other sick individuals in the gay community, including Derek Jarman (David Dawson), the iconic openly gay director who gave Charleson his first acting role. Beresford gets whimsical with his script enough to imagine an entirely different relationship for Charleson and Jarman, who battled over the former’s decision not to go public. For Charleson, being an actor is a powerful thing, but life can’t be allowed to intrude on the act of acting on stage.
There are other heartbreaking performances, but Elsinore is uplifted by a triumphant Scott who has the daunting challenge of playing Hamlet, arguably the most challenging role for any actor, and Charleson, who sees Hamlet as the last chance to truly leave his mark.
Even if the Bard’s famous soliloquy “To be or not to be” has little meaning to you (count me in on that one), you’ll want to bring some extra tissues when Charleson recites it while contemplating his own mortality. Charleson may have been disregarded as a Hollywood actor, but Elsinore and Scott’s tremendous, Oscar-worthy performance give him another chance in the limelight where he can be discovered by a new generation.
Focus Features will release Elsinore in select theaters on November 20th, with expansions to follow.
