by Eurocheese
Heading into my screening of Elsinore on the last day of the festival, I had heard a number of mixed things on the ground. Some said the film pulls too readily at heartstrings without much plot. I’d heard rumblings that it was likely to win an audience prize, and it ended up taking the International People’s Choice Award before I saw it (yes, it’s eligible since it’s a UK production and La Bola Negra became automatically disqualified for the honor when it won TIFF’s general People’s Choice Award). There were those who thought Olivia Colman didn’t have enough to do, and I heard folks say it flat-out didn’t work. Since this was one of my most anticipated titles heading into the festival, I was beyond curious about how I would ultimately feel…
One thing everyone seemed to agree on: Not only is Andrew Scott excellent, but he is also delivering an awards-bait showcase that deserves every bit of the praise it will inevitably receive this season. He plays Ian Charleson, an actor best known for his performance in Chariots of Fire. That Best Picture winner from the early 80s becomes a comic motif of sorts, as it seems the actor can’t escape Vangelis’ iconic theme wherever he goes. By the time we find him, Charleson is landing mediocre work on film when an opportunity arises – Daniel Day-Lewis has walked off stage mid-performance during Hamlet, and they’re looking for an emergency replacement. Knowing this is a huge endeavor and opportunity, he takes on the role. Immediately after, he finds a telltale lesion on his face, familiar to many queer men at the time. He knows this means his HIV has progressed to AIDS.
Elsinore focuses on the importance of making good use of the time we have, an especially important theme when portraying a time when so much of the gay community was making decisions based on the keen awareness of their own mortality. The week before my screening, I attended an “In Conversation With…” session with Scott, where he talked about why he felt it was important to produce this movie. One theme that spoke to him was the pursuit of personal joy above all else, and in a clip from Elsinore where he debates what matters most in his life with his doctor (Colman), the actor was moved to tears (and mocked himself for crying at his own clip). He talked about how all of us make decisions at some point that shape our trajectories, and those decisions interest him more in his characters than their sexuality or any single aspect of their being. That resolute joy, the determination to pursue greatness, is what he hopes to achieve for himself and what he saw in Charleson as he played him at this juncture in the late thespian’s life.
I can understand why Elsinore doesn’t work for everyone. There are montages of clips when he is studying Hamlet that feel like a bit of a cheat in amping up emotions, and flashbacks near the end that milk the audience’s sympathies like nobody’s business. The plot points align with what we have seen in from films with similar stories, Simon Stone’s direction isn’t particularly impressive, and there aren’t any scenes that manage to surprise in any significant way. Elsinore is by the numbers, through and through. Even so, Scott carries it with determination, giving every ounce of himself for our appreciation and awe. Charleson talks about the pursuit of artistic greatness almost as if it’s a holy cause, a quest he must complete before the end. Hamlet is his last Herculean task to conquer. After that, he can die in peace.
Olivia Colman has a small role but provides necessary conflict as the health-focused doctor attempting to gatekeep Charleson from further destroying his body, which increasingly shows signs of deterioration under the stress of the stage production. Derek Jarman (played by David Dawson), who directed Charleson early in his career, appears to chastise him for staying in the closet, eventually leading to a blow-up between the characters. The real enemy here is the temporariness of it all, though, and everything else is secondary to time passing and the actor left sucking the marrow out of every moment he has left. Nobility or stability is not of interest. Occasionally, Scott shows us the toll it takes on Charleson while convincing us why it doesn’t deter him from what he wants to do. The score sweeps the audience in to aid its leading man, and, while the point may be a bit too clearly underlined, there’s a reason this is winning audiences over – it’s hard not to get caught up in the pulsing thrust towards Elsinore’s rousing final scenes.
While mileage may vary, there’s no question that Elsinore contains one of the great performances of the cinematic year, and I’m thrilled Andrew Scott is having this moment after a couple of awards-worthy turns left sadly unrewarded. Another festival audience winner, I Play Rocky, has been swarmed with praise for its emotional responses in the crowds. Having also screened it at TIFF, I’d argue that it is a far less ambitious or interesting movie. Yet, as I heard many festival attendees say, “I don’t know, I just liked it.” Well, walking out of the theater, I had to concede that Elsinore isn’t a perfect film, but if its goal was hitting me emotionally, it did its job. I don’t know, I just liked it.
Our TIFF coverage will, of course, extend past the festival proper, even as we prepare to tackle NYFF in a few days. Expect some more reviews, wrap-up posts, convos between team members who were on the ground and, of course, Cláudio’s review of La Bola Negra, this year’s People’s Choice Award champion and current Oscar frontrunner.