From Mashable · Kristy Puchko · · 3m
Rather die from Hamlet than AIDS
Andrew Scott plays a dying actor who chooses the stage over safety, in a film about living, not dying.
In brief
Andrew Scott plays a dying actor who chooses the stage over safety, in a film about living, not dying. None of us get out alive, so the real question is what you choose to live for while you can. Originally reported by Mashable.
Theater as a religious act
The reviewer opens from a place of faith in art over god. A dark theater lets an audience feel seen without being watched, and Elsinore hits that nerve.
“You don't need a brave face here. You just need a beating heart.”
Who Ian Charleson was
Scott plays the Scottish actor best known for Chariots of Fire. Stephen Beresford's script narrows in on the last play of his life.
Hamlet while dying
Charleson took the title role at the National Theatre while dying of AIDS, a fact the public did not know. Shakespeare's tragedy of death and regret becomes his mirror.
Not a death movie
Even with awards buzz for Scott, the film is hard to brace for. Its subject is not dying but the choosing that comes before it.
“Elsinore is not about death, but how we choose to live.”
London, 1989
Set at the peak of the AIDS crisis, with men dying in huge numbers and governments looking away. Ian is 40, knows his status, and leans on friends who often share it.
He takes the role anyway
Olivia Colman's doctor warns that the strain of Hamlet will cut his remaining time short. He takes the part regardless.
“rather die from Hamlet than AIDS”
Funny in the face of death
The film is streaked with jokes. Scott, who also produced, said at TIFF that humor was essential because people always look for the light. Hamlet has jokes too.
“the great thing about human beings is that we always look for the light”
The people around him
A stage door worker lands lines with the bite of Hamlet's gravedigger. Billie Piper's gossipy casting agent Patsy Pollock shows Ian as a friend and an uncle, not just a talent.
The Derek Jarman fight
A soured friendship with the queer filmmaker, played by David Dawson, turns on a demand: come out publicly about your sexuality and your diagnosis, or be a coward.
Privacy versus disclosure
Director Simon Stone argues both sides hard and refuses to declare a winner. How each man chose to live and to die is left to him.
Touch carries the weight
People feared touching AIDS patients at all, and a skittish doctor washes his hands twice after an exam. So a held hand or a stroked face lands with enormous force.
“you can practically feel it on your own fingertips”
A fumbled final note
The third act sinks into maudlin montage and a confounding music cue. Stone swells the score over the cast banging on dressing room windows, drowning out the sound of human hands.
“It's meant to show you are seen, claimed, and loved.”
What matters most
None of us get out alive, so the real question is what you choose to live for while you can.
