Elsinore Review

There’s nothing all that suspenseful about the action within Elsinore. That’s the way of things when you’re watching a biopic that turns on a singular event: actor Ian Charleson (Andrew Scott) is determined to portray Hamlet on the stage of the National Theatre before he dies of AIDS. It really happened, it was – by all accounts – a performance for the ages (no less than Sir Ian McKellen heralded it as the greatest Hamlet he had ever seen), and Charleson died shortly after. A tragedy within a tragedy. And writer Stephen Beresford and director Simon Stone make sure that the story pulls on our heartstrings throughout, capturing the brief moments of joy amidst the hard road Charleson walks to accomplish his dream before time runs out.

This isn’t a subtle film. It’s not concerned with the silences of life. Rather, it’s filled to the brim with the push of human stubbornness in the face of the word no. Charleson is warned against taking on the most complex role in theatre by everyone around him, including his doctor, Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman, asked to be the adult in the room throughout). For someone with next to no immune system left, the need for hours of rehearsal, nearly all of it on stage as Hamlet is rarely off, would be more than enough to deplete what little reserves Charleson has left. Add to it that he’s hiding his diagnosis (and his sexuality) from nearly everyone working on the play (save its director, Richard Eyre (Johnny Flynn), who supports him in his endeavors with nothing but kindness) and the wider public, well, Charleson has a lot going on.

The story would almost certainly fall into the realm of cloying melodrama without a central performance like the one being given by Andrew Scott as Charleson. And the Oscar buzz he’s receiving is well-earned*. Scott manages to not only show us Charleson’s deep drive to present something lasting to the world before he shuffles off this mortal coil – feeling that he’s never managed to achieve the career on the screen he hoped following early success with the film Chariots of Fire – but to show us that Charleson is, truly, an exceptional actor. His Hamlet – which we see in bits a pieces throughout the film – is spectacular. It made me sad to have missed Scott’s own turn as the brooding prince, I was so impressed by what I was watching on screen**. It’s in these rehearsals and performance snippets that the full weight of the story being told hits: This is a man, fully accepting his own impending death, who is on a stage, giving everything he has in service of telling a story about a man who is willing to face certain death in his need to avenge his father. It is, as Charleson reminds Dr. Johnson, a play very much concerned with life and death.

*The role checks off nearly every box in the “Oscar Bait Performance” list: a gay character, dying of AIDS, performance of Shakespeare, a British story, a biopic, and a tragic, yet still hopeful, ending. The only wrinkle: Were Scott to win, he would be the first openly gay actor to win an Oscar for playing a gay character – something that has gotten many a straight actor awards glory over the years, but never an out actor.

**One of my chief complaints about the film Hamnet two years ago was how absolutely atrocious the performance of Hamlet was. They could learn a thing or two from Scott’s work here – it’s really something special, and I say that as someone who sees a lot of Shakespeare.

The film isn’t solely concerned with how Charleson can navigate a debilitating disease while trying to climb the physical and emotional mountain that is Hamlet. There’s also a particularly sharp subplot dealing with his decision to remain not only in the closet about his sexuality but about his diagnosis. He continually bumps into Derek Jarman (David Dawson, very good), an avant garde director who gave Charleson his first film role in a very queer film – a film that he has since expunged from his CV. Also sick with AIDS, Jarman pushes Charleson to go public with his diagnosis, knowing that having a public figure of his magnitude out might change public perception of the disease and potentially increase funding for a cure. Jarman, naturally, came out with his diagnosis as soon as he received it and the backlash was swift. In a truly spectacular speech, Charleson tells Jarman the thing that many a closeted actor has stated over the years: As an actor, the audience needs only to believe that the actor is the person they are portraying – they don’t need to know who they are when they walk off set.

Coming from the mouth of Scott – an out actor who has managed to carve a nice career for himself outside of the suffocating walls of the closet, that speech hits differently than it would have from just about anyone else. In fact, having Charleson portrayed by an out actor makes the film feel different in every way. This isn’t a film with someone masquerading in the skin of a gay man – a straight actor putting on a mask of homosexuality. This is an out actor, telling a story of someone from his community. While I firmly believe in the message of that speech – that a great actor can play anything thrown their way – it’s a real breath of fresh air to see an out actor get the chance to star in a story so tied to LGBTQ history for once. And Scott? He’s so incredibly good in the role. He has such a command of Charleson within the piece, showing us his pain, his stubbornness, his fear, his frustration, and his deep joy. This film may be a tragedy, but it’s also so infused with love – from Charleson’s friends and family (Billie Piper has a lovely turn as his best friend, Pat), from his costars, from the medical staff at the hospital – we understand just what it took to keep him standing and believing in himself as things became dire.

This isn’t a happy story. And it’s not a happy story about the staging of a happy story. This is a tale of the tragic death of Ian Charleson from AIDS. But before he died, he gave the world a gift. A gift of himself, his talent, his love. A gift that resonated after his death in several ways as well. And it comes with one hell of a central performance from Andrew Scott – one that I suspect Ian Charleson would have been happy with.

Elsinore will be released in the US on November 20. This film was screened at the 2026 Chicago International Film Festival.