TIFF Review: Andrew Scott in Elsinore

Andrew Scott is a very fine actor, no one doubts this. He has in Elsinore, a quasi-biopic of Scottish actor Ian Charleson, what should be the role of a lifetime. Certainly, Scott pours his heart and talent into his performance, but the film around him is so unimaginative and worse, borderline exploitative, that it sucks the verve out of Scott’s performance. Written by Stephen Beresford and directed by Simon Stone, Elsinore documents the end of Ian Charleson’s life, when he appeared in two dozen performance of Hamlet for England’s National Theatre while dying from complications of HIV/AIDS.

Ian had his big break in 1981’s Chariots of Fire, but by 1989 he is mostly known as a stage actor. His film career stalled through the 80s, though he continued to work in theater throughout the decade. He is also a closeted gay man, and he has HIV/AIDS at a time when the illness was still deeply stigmatized. He’s 40, he’s dying, and Daniel Day-Lewis just quit the National Theatre’s production of Hamlet mid-run. Seeing a chance, Ian takes on the role offered by director Richard Eyre (Johnny Flynn), though his doctor, Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman), recommends he not do the play, as the strenuous role would demolish what little remains of his health.

Ian does it anyway. Richard knows the truth of Ian’s diagnosis, but no one else does. Facial swelling from septicemia is attributed to a sinus operation, his lesions and bouts of vomiting are hidden from cast, crew, and public. Ian powers through the demanding role even as he fades rapidly, and Scott brings a determination that swings between grim, as Ian sees this as his last chance to secure his legacy as an actor, and beneficent, as he transcends his worsening condition to deliver the performance he knows he has in him.

Crucially, though, Ian does not come out or acknowledge the truth of his illness while he’s alive. He argues with his former lover, filmmaker Derek Jarman (David Dawson), who is himself out and gay and publicly identified as having HIV/AIDS. The two men cannot agree on whether or not Ian should come out in his final days, but in the best piece of writing from Beresford in the film, neither man is completely right or completely wrong. Derek is right that the queer community and HIV/AIDS community would benefit from knowing about Ian, but Ian is right that his entire life would become about his illness, at the moment when he is trying to be remembered for something else.

Somewhere, there is a version of Elsinore that lives up to Scott’s performance, that matches his ferocity and gives Ian Charleson his due (at the time, Ian McKellan called him “the perfect Hamlet”). This is not that version of the film. Elsinore instead plays to the lowest common denominator, jarringly dropping every ball around Scott and stranding his genuinely moving performance amidst a sea of mediocrity (Scott is gay and undoubtedly recognizes the links in the chain he and Charleson represent, the queer actor who died closeted and, 40 years later, the queer actor who succeeds on stages and screens around the world while living his life as himself).

Elsinore becomes illness p-rn, framing Ian’s deteriorating body as a spectacle, shots lingering on lesions and blood and vomit. And the lighting is horrible, flat and drab and grey, washing out the film in a way that is probably supposed to represent death but goes directly against the intensity of Scott’s performance, which is full of passion. Scott does not play Ian as a victim but as someone digging deep to do the one thing he knows he can do better than any other, with the full, terrible knowledge it is his last opportunity to do so. The film, however, frames Ian like he’s stuck in tawdry Oscar bait from ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Scott is trying to do more than that, but Elsinore does not meet him where he is.

And worse! Ian’s legendary performance as Hamlet, widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, is relegated to a choppy montage at the end of the film. The whole point of Elsinore is Ian’s 24-show run as Hamlet, and all we get is a terrible remix, like someone shoved all the footage of Scott-as-Ian-as-Hamlet into a blender and hit “soup”. The very least Elsinore can do is give us one great moment of Scott performing Ian performing Hamlet, to understand the scope of Ian’s performance, which can never be seen again as no recording exists.

Andrew Scott is trying to memorialize Ian Charleson’s legendary performance, but his director (and editor Valerio Bonelli) are working directly against him. Elsinore is a huge missed opportunity. Andrew Scott is acting his heart out, and his performance IS very, very good, but there is simply no getting around how flat and uninteresting Elsinore is around him.

Elsinore will play exclusively in theaters from November 20, 2026.