The Count of Monte Cristo
Written and directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere
Starring Pierre Niney, Bastien Bouillon, Anaïs Demoustier, Anamarie Vartolomei
Unrated
Runtime: 2 hour and 58 minutes
In theaters December 20

by Tessa Swehla, Associate Editor

Revenge and its effects have been the subject of human storytelling since our cave dwelling days, but Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Count of Monte Cristo (1846) is considered by many to be the foundational revenge text for European and American literature and film. There have been at least 22 film adaptations of Edmond Dantès’ unrelenting quest for vengeance, from the silent era to now, spanning several continents and languages. It is the revenge text, with fingerprints all over pop culture from V for Vendetta (2005) to Blue Eyed Samurai to Kill Bill, Vols. 1 and 2 (2003 and 2004).

The latest French adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, directed by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere, leans into the historical epic aspects of the story, condensing some of the more labyrinthian plot details and characters in order to emphasize the action. As in the novel, Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney) is the son of a servant in a rich house and an officer on a commercial sailing ship out of Marseille in 1815 under the command of the cruel Captain Danglars (Marie Narbonne). Due to their respective actions on their last voyage, Danglars is fired upon their return to port while Edmond is promoted to captain. He is delighted, as this means he can marry his sweetheart Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier). Her cousin Fernand (Bastien Bouillon), the son of the elder Dantès’ employer and Edmond’s childhood best friend, wants Mercédès for himself, so he, Danglars, and a corrupt prosecutor frame Edmond as a Bonapartist–Napoleon was planning his return from Elba in 1815–and thrown into a dark windowless cell in the infamous Château d'If prison.

He remains there, forgotten, for six years until he meets fellow prisoner Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino), who educates him and enlists him to help dig an escape tunnel over the next eight years (that’s fourteen years total imprisonment, in case you were wondering). Faria tells Edmond about the fantastic treasure of the Templars and reveals that he alone knows its hiding place, on the island of Monte Cristo. Faria dies the night before their escape, but Edmond makes it out. Years later, he returns to Marseille as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo, determined to wreak revenge on the men who ruined his life all those years ago.

This film is a fairly straightforward, if simplified, adaptation of the original novel, but it is a powerful reminder of why this story, set in such a particular time and place in French history, has had such a lasting impact. Pierre Niney’s performance as Edmond is nothing short of spectacular, embodying the character’s traumatic transformation from a rather naive boy to a cunning mastermind. His revenge is like a beautifully choreographed dance, and the film revels in his clever calculations and disguises (there are Mission: Impossible masks! Secret passages! Seances!). The other cast members also rise to his level: of particular note are the performances of Anaïs Demoustier as Mercédès and Anamaria Vartolomei as Haydée, a young woman that Edmond recruits who has her own motivation for revenge. The make-up department also gets special praise here as the facilitators of characters who age over the course of twenty years.

The production also takes full advantage of its 42.9 million euro budget, embracing sweeping outdoor establishing shots, sumptuous sets, and elaborate historical costuming. It’s historical drama at its most indulgent, but the refusal to look away from the harsh truths of both 19th century French society and the characters themselves lend an edge to the luxe production design. It’s cinema on a grand scale, to match the scope of its subject.

Much has been written about how revenge inflicts its demands on all parties involved, but in this adaptation, I found myself thinking about Alfred Hitchcock’s phobia of false imprisonment. The trope of “the wrong man” is something he returned to over and over again in his films—including in The Wrong Man (1956)—and I found myself wondering what Hitchcock thought of Edmond’s tale. It’s likely he read the novel or saw some adaptation at some point, and I imagine that for him, it contained more horror than tragedy. This adaptation, more than any other that I have seen, embraces that aspect of Monte Cristo: the violence of sudden arrest, the derangement of knowing one’s innocence and not being able to prove it, the slow starvation of isolation—both emotional and physical—and the agony of learning that others have suffered in one’s absence. By the time the full extent of his ruin has been revealed, the viewer feels a real sense of righteous anticipation in Edmond’s vow to God: “I will do what you couldn’t. I will reward, and I will punish.”