London, 1989. Ian Charleson has already experienced the strange double edge of fame: admired for Chariots of Fire, he longs to return to the stage and take on a role that might truly test him. When an unexpected opening arises in a National Theatre production of Hamlet, the opportunity arrives at the worst possible moment. Charleson is living with AIDS, and time is no longer something he can take for granted.

Andrew Scott brings wit, tenderness and fierce resolve to Charleson in Simon Stone’s portrait of an artist who refuses to let illness determine the limits of his imagination. With Olivia Colman as his doctor and Johnny Flynn as theatre director Richard Eyre, Elsinore is as attentive to the rehearsals, friendships and backstage negotiations as it is to the performance itself. More than a biographical drama, it is a film about what it means to give yourself completely to an art form — and how a role about mortality can become a radical affirmation of being alive.