Four & a quarter centuries after its premiere, Shakespeare’s HAMLET is again inspiring the year’s most moving film. Last year, HAMNET/’25 (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2026/03/hamnet-2025.html), this year, uncontrollable sobbing likely to come from ELSINORE/’26, the true story of how CHARIOTS OF FIRE actor Ian Charleson took a leap of faith, stepping in to play Hamlet in spite of rapid physical decline from AIDS, taking over the part on short-notice when Daniel Day Lewis ankled mid-performance. A ‘can’t miss’ idea if there ever was one. Only that wasn’t the original idea. Most of the creatives (producers, writers, lead Andrew Scott) initially got behind this project when it was being developed as a ‘behind-the-scenes’ film on the making of this Italian giallo. (Giallo: those stylishly gory, color-saturated, tits & terror Italian horror films.) Giallo master Dario Argento, past his ‘70s prime by ‘87, but still up for big, bloody set pieces between his near random notions of drama. (Argento never much for ‘leg-bone-connected-to-the-thigh-bone’ story construction.) Charleson co-stars, playing a high-concept film and opera director taking on Verdi’s MACBETH when his Lady Macbeth ankles the high-flying tessitura and her replacement is young, willowy, much pursued Cristina Marsillach. Argento tosses in a bit of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in some skulduggery to get her on stage in the role, but the main plot involves murder attempts, Charleson’s role as off-stage protector and a handsome police detective as rival. The big climax typically has little bearing on the plot as an ‘unkindness’ of ravens is released in the opera house where they attack a well-heeled crowd of music lovers. (Hitchcock’s Bodega Bay Elementary School in THE BIRDS has nothing to fear.) And while the film is reasonable Argento, it’s hard to see what the ELSINORE talent were planning to develop out of it.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: This was Charleson’s last feature film, dying at 40 in 1990, six weeks after he completed his run as Hamlet.
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