The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo is one of French literature’s great stories, and one adapted for the screen on multiple occasions. At more than 1,200 pages, with much more complexity to its plot than its best-remembered elements, it is a gruelling undertaking to get right. However, co-directors and writers Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière have done exactly that with their lavish new period epic, set in early 19^th-century France.

Pierre Niney plays its central character, Edmond Dantès, a sailor set for promotion to captain and marriage to his aristocrat sweetheart Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier). Yet danger lurks around the corner in the shape of the jealousy of his army officer friend Fernand de Morcef (Bastien Bouillon), his scorned former captain Danglars (Patrick Mille) and Gérard de Villefort (Laurent Lafitte), an unscrupulous prosecutor.

After rescuing a mysterious woman at sea, a signed directive is found in the now-ousted Napoleon’s handwriting – resulting in his arrest. With neither de Morcef, Danglars nor others willing or able to vouch for his innocence, he ends up incarcerated in a pit-like dungeon in the island jail of Château d’If near Marseille.

After several years of incarceration, he is accosted by another prisoner, Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino) – a clergyman with an important secret leading to a fortune beyond one’s wildest dreams. Upon Dantès’s escape, he uses that fortune to pose as the mysterious “Count of Monte Cristo” and plots an elaborate revenge on those who have wronged him. He utilises their own greed and past crimes against them and enlists others also wronged.

It is important to say, first, that Delaporte and La Patellière’s film looks terrific, simultaneously referencing the period while taking liberties to add style for the 21^st-century eye. Aficionados of the book may also spot some changes to characters and elements of the plot. These largely work to create a slicker, more easily understood version of the story for the screen, as a film lacks the space to meander as much as the classic novel.

In its first half, it also rollicks along like a boy’s own adventure – despite its length (in total it runs to almost three hours), it never feels deliberative. Matters do slow down a little as Dantès’s plot comes to fruition, but there’s enough tension created by moral qualms about his revenge to hold interest.

Niney is also fantastic as Dantès and “The Count”, playing him as a young idealist and cold master of disguise – and in scenes with Demoustier, capturing the heartbreak of having lost love and a future together.

Never dull, and taking on one of the great stories of our time, The Count of Monte Cristo is a worthy adaptation of Dumas’s epic.

Mark Worgan

The Count of Monte Cristo is released in select cinemas on 30^th August 2024.

Watch the trailer for The Count of Monte Cristo here: