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"Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."
Elsinore is a biopic directed by Simon Stone that follows the last few months of Ian Charleson (Andrew Scott), an accomplished stage actor haunted by his most famous role in Chariots of Fire. A gay man living in London in the late 1980s, Charleson was diagnosed with AIDS at a time when the stigma was at its height, choosing to keep his diagnosis private.
At the same time, a young Daniel Day-Lewis storms off the stage at Richard Eyre's production of Hamlet. Needing a new actor for the titular role, Eyre selects Charleson, not knowing of his illness.
The film, if anything, is a vehicle for Scott's exceptional performance. He is living the dream of any actor in this role, both getting a character piece and the chance to perform Shakespeare, having also previously played Hamlet in 2017.
As for the script he is given to work with, it is certainly one in the category of post-Philadelphia AIDS movies with the lone agenda of making you cry by the end of it. And effective it was, as sniffles and snotty noses echoed through the theatre. We know how this story ends; even if not for the real Charleson, there is naturally only one inevitable conclusion. We go into this movie almost masochistically and are greeted with the usual grief and inspiration, a near-expected cliché.
This is not to say the film isn't effective; based on the emotional reaction around it, the film clearly is, and Stone was intentional in connecting the overarching theme of death in Hamlet as it relates to Charleson's own mortality. But it is a neutral feeling I hold towards it, for without Scott, I fail to see a gripping film outside of a quest for awards season, as the film connects the dots as opposed to painting us a picture of Charleson. So much of it rides on emotionality that little else concerns it.
There is little time to breathe, as the frantic editing in the form of frequent jump cuts is continually jarring; even the final Hamlet performance is chopped up, so quickly that there is little time to savor. The handheld cinematography is painfully intimate, and something we should have lingered with more. Although I will give Stone major credit where it is due for crafting a wholly accurate portrayal of the chaos of working in theatre.
These gripes are admittedly nitpicky, for I see Elsinore as a crowd favourite and one that will surely grip most audiences with its candid rawness. It is a crowd pleaser in the unconventional sense in that Stone has crafted a film that provokes an admittedly predictable but comforting experience.
