Chariots of Fire<\/a>, a decade earlier, is meanwhile soldiering through a modestly successful career. \u201cAll anyone can remember is the music,\u201d someone says (not quite fairly) of his most famous performance. <\/p>\nWord comes in that Eyre would like Charleson to take over from Day-Lewis, but the director does not yet know that his potential lead is living with Aids. Indeed, Charleson\u2019s recent discovery of Kaposi\u2019s sarcoma, a lesion characteristic of the disease, suggests a marked deterioration. <\/p>\n
Eyre is cautiously willing to proceed. Dr Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman), the actor\u2019s pioneering physician, has, however, grave concerns about the stress this will put on her patient\u2019s failing body. \u201cI\u2019d rather die of Hamlet than Aids,\u201d he says later.<\/p>\n
Stephen Beresford\u2019s screenplay is a linear affair, moving from first reading to rehearsal to triumphant performance. Along the way the film provides a captivating, sometimes necessarily mordant portrait of gay life during the final year\u2019s of Margaret Thatcher\u2019s administration. <\/p>\n
David Dawson turns up as Derek Jarman, the storied avant-garde director who cast Charleson in the punk romp Jubilee, to chastise our protagonist for not publicly announcing his diagnosis. Charleson, from a working-class background, delivers a robust response that makes irrefutable points about the UK\u2019s stubborn social hierarchies. <\/p>\n
All this is shot by Mike Elley in wintry shades that chime with the story\u2019s mortal concerns. The National Theatre really does come across like a hulking medieval pile.<\/p>\n
None of this strong work would much matter were there not a bravura performance at the film\u2019s fraught centre. Scott, always good with the dryest irony, allows his Charleson to work humour into even the most harrowing conversations. <\/p>\n
There are dangers here. It is asking much of an audience \u2013 even one aware that this is a true story \u2013 to believe any performance could be worth the risks this actor looks to be taking. \u201cNo one ever walked out of Hamlet saying, \u2018What a short evening of light entertainment,\u2019\u201d Johnson says with a frown. <\/p>\n
But Scott grasps the importance of conveying the actor\u2019s motivation as a need rather than a desire. Again and again, the play makes bitter commentary on his situation. \u201cI wasted time, and now doth time waste me,\u201d Hamlet says.<\/p>\n
It is not possible, in a motion picture, to fully convey the physical decline that accompanies death from Aids. But Scott, towards the close, allows all polite barriers to collapse as Charleson slips traumatically away. <\/p>\n
Billie Piper offers strong support as the casting director who stays by his side. A tragically crushed Peter Mullan, as his father, does more with three or four lines than some actors have done with all Hamlet\u2019s 4,000.<\/p>\n
A bruising film that confirms Scott as one of the greats of our age.<\/p>\n
Elsinore opened the 70th BFI London Film Festival<\/a>. It will be in Irish cinemas from January 29th, 2027 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elsinore \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d7 Director: Simon Stone Cert: None Starring: Andrew Scott, Olivia Colman, Billie Piper,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[120002,10331,37771,96,46823,64269,2054,2839,44230,33357,244845,261600,45596,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-795262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-andrew-scott","tag-billie-piper","tag-daniel-day-lewis","tag-entertainment","tag-jessie-buckley","tag-john-malkovich","tag-margaret-thatcher","tag-movies","tag-olivia-colman","tag-oscars","tag-peter-mullan","tag-richard-eyre","tag-simon-stone","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}