Director: Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu
Delaporte
Year:
2025
Country:
France
Rating:
7.5
Dumas
has never been out of fashion. There are enough adaptations of his work to
last one years in viewing. Lately, his homeland of France has taken him up
again with the two large scale Three Musketeer films, a partial biography
of his life, a mini-series of this same novel in this same year and this
widely acclaimed film. The Count of Monte Cristo has been adapted many times
going all the way back to the silent era. The novel was perhaps the first
great fictional work of revenge and it has resonated with audiences for over
two hundred years. In an era where people are once again being wrongfully
imprisoned without trial and disappeared, this story feels more immediate
than ever. There will always be injustices and there will always be the desire
for revenge. Both are our nature.
This is bathed in visual grandeur and rich
blistering beautiful landscapes. One nice thing about filming a period film
such as this in France is that you don't need CGI - they still have the magnificence
of centuries ago to use as locations. This adaptation makes changes to the
book as one expects. It was published in serial form over a year and is about
1,300 pages. Even a three-hour film such as this needs to slim that down
considerably and they do by dropping characters and plot lines. It is simplified
- perhaps the eight-part mini-series or the four-part one from 1998 with
the father and son Depardieu's contains all the multiple head-spinning plot
lines. The heart of the matter is all here though - less cruel than the book
and less of a happy ending. The saying is that revenge is best served cold,
but here revenge is best served slowly.
Pierre Niney plays Edmond Dantes. Suitably
handsome and Gallic, he does a fine job. The story must be well-known to
most. He returns from sea and is told that he will be given a captainship
and rushes to tell Mercedes (Anaïs Demoustier) that he can now marry
her. But he is framed for Napoleonic activities by his friend who also loves
Mercedes, a ship's captain who lost his job to Dantes and an official Prosecutor
whose sister is actually the one involved in Napoleon's return from Elba
(in the book it is his father). They send him to a prison surrounded by water,
living in these deep holes in the fortification. Years pass, he becomes friends
with his fellow prisoner as they try and dig out - more years pass - he has
been declared dead - Mercedes marries the betrayer, has children - and he
escapes with the secret of the Monte Cristo treasure from his now dead friend
- and becomes enormously wealthy and very slowly and intricately sets up
his revenge as the Count of Monte Cristo. The actual revenge seems a bit
short-changed and rushed and not as satisfying as it should have been. It
is directed by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte.
Now that France has done the Three Musketeers and this, hopefully The Man
in the Iron Mask is on the way.
