Andrew Scott is Exquisitely Magnificent in Elsinore

In 1995, I was privileged enough to witness Ralph Fiennes in his Tony award-winning role as “Hamlet.” Words can not adequately describe how I felt after that performance.  The same overwhelming  joy and amazement washed over my soul at this year’s Telluride Film Festival after screening Andrew Scott in Elsinore (is the royal castle and court of Denmark where the entire story takes place).

Prior to the screening, director Scott Stone shared what we were all about to experience was a “niche film illustrating the parallels between being gay and the late 80’s theatre community of London.”

In 1989, eight months into the production, Daniel Day-Lewis broke down on stage and rumors quickly spread  he broke down over literally saw the ghost of his own late father, poet Cecil Day-Lewis (who died when the actor was 15).

Day-Lewis later clarified that while it was an intensely vivid, hallucinatory moment of emotional exhaustion and grief blurring into his character, the urban legend of a literal supernatural apparition was an exaggeration. He left because he was completely depleted and overwhelmed by the role, marking his final appearance on a live stage.

Elsinore begins with that unfortunate incident proving a moment of levity serving as the clam before the storm.

Mostly known for his role in the award-winning film “Chariots of Fire,” whose theme song is remembered more than the film,  Ian Charleson was tapped as Day Lewis’ replacement.   It was the role of a lifetime inhabited by some of the greatest thespians to ever grace a stage (Sir John Gielgud, Mark Rylance, Sir Alec Guinness) and now Charleson. But the good news wouldn’t last for long as Charleson would receive the grim news of being infected HIV-AIDS.  Being very aware that playing Hamlet could define his legacy, he kept the news private…until he couldn’t.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a revenge play with every characteristic of the human condition on display.  It’s about being alive and becoming dead.  One of his lines  from Act 1, Scene 2 literally ,says  “”Thou know’st ’tis common; all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity.”

At one point, Ian (Scott) says if people see me and not the character I play then I have failed at my job.  Andrew Scott is the furthest thing away from being a failure portraying Ian Charleson.  He’s triumphant in every sense of the word. Ironically, Scott had also played Hamlet in 2017 in the West End, and it was his intimate understanding of the monumental task that a gravely ill Chalreson took on at the National Theatre – in a role that at its core looked death in the face, that resonates profoundly on the screen.

In a scene where Ian shares being queer with his parents and s profusely apologetic, he begins smacking himself in head, as if that is the punishment he self-inflicted because his parents were frozen. While his Mom cradles him with quiet love, Dad is stoic and completely unresponsive until he’s in the parking lot where he sobs and simply states, “That’s my son.”

Scott’s prowess is perfection in the final moments of finally watching him as Hamlet, while Hamlet and Ian are dying simultaneously.

Yet, this is not just the story of Ian Charleson, but of Dr. Margaret Johnson (played by Olivia Colman).  Johnson was a groundbreaking physician whose research and treatment of HIV/AIDS patients was widely stigmatized.  “She told him [Ian]: You shouldn’t do this, it will kill you,” but Ian had made the decision he would rather die from playing Hamlet than from AIDS. Dr. Johns didn’t judge how people ended up in her rooms.  Colman played her with an immense amount of empathy as she always does, but seeing the expression on her face as Ian is performing Hamlet is priceless.

Elsinore, which made its World Premiere the Telluride Film Festival, is a magnificent piece of cinema that only honors the on and offstage worlds of live theatre and its community, but pays homage one last time to a life and career gone way too soon.  As they say in the play, “The rest is silence…goodnight sweet prince – goodnight.”

The film will be released domestically on November 20th, following a European premiere on October 7th