To be an awards showcase or not to be satisfied until the whole cinema audience is sobbing? These are indeed the questions of Simon Stone’s Elsinore (B+), but it’s such a stirring celebration of the indomitable power of the human spirit and of theatre that any calculated designs quickly become inconsequential. Scott plays closeted Scottish actor Ian Charleson, best known to moviegoers for Chariots of Fire, who steps into the role of Hamlet at London’s National Theatre just as he is diagnosed with AIDS at the height of the epidemic. The film follows Charleson’s determination to deliver a defining performance during the final months of his life, even as his failing body threatens to betray him. Olivia Colman is a formidable foil as the doctor who warns him of the punishing demands Shakespeare’s great role will impose. Scott gives a magnetic, sensitive and occasionally very funny performance, lending the actor’s private struggle the same grandeur as Hamlet’s public anguish. Soaring soliloquies about life upon the stage are complemented by inspired flourishes, including a hospital-wing dance break set to techno-infused Ethel Merman. In Elsinore, show business becomes both refuge and rebellion in the face of tragedy. Fans of Shakespeare, Scott and unabashed sentimentality will want to seek out this film.