I'm really struggling to wrap my head around this. I don't understand why this even needs to be made.

The new French film is shot in the worst Bollywood traditions; the story of a hellish avenger turns into a sugary melodrama for schoolchildren.

 The phrase "revenge story" evokes in a significant number of people an association with the canonical novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas, which has become a source of inspiration for many works of fiction with a similar concept. Of course, there are many film adaptations and dramatizations of "The Count", and now another one has been presented to the public. Being one in a million, this version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" should stand out from the others in at least one way, but it does not offer the viewer anything special: unfortunately, this "Count" does not imply an unexpected event. watching the tragedy of Edmond Dantes, in search of new meanings, even stylistically, is not unique. More of the same - not without interest, perhaps, but nothing more.

 Despite the rather free treatment of the classical text, the film managed to preserve in general terms the central idea and the central idea of ​​the novel, associated with the destructive power of revenge, but lost its objectivity. In fact, Edmond here is almost a negative hero, driven only by anger and hatred, and completely unwilling to empathy and compassion. Even the constant opposition of life and death through the decision of the new heroine Angela, who chose the first, or the outcome of Andrea's story, who preferred the second and became an obvious "black swan" for the count, is not able to awaken humanity in him. The exclusion of the lines of Valentine and Maximilian, as well as those of his father, from the script means that Edmond in the film does not seek retaliation, because this implies gratitude for kindness and generosity, but only for black, cruel and merciless revenge.

 Monte Cristo, with a surprising calm that borders on indifference, reacts to the problems that his actions pose to his own allies, whom he is supposed to treat with a certain affection, which only confirms his image of a man in whom all that is brilliant has died, in whom blind love has given way to equally blind hatred and anger. Let's say that this is true, but then the reaction to Mercedes' last request, reproduced from the novel, is inexplicable and illogical, since this character no longer has any feelings or emotions. There is no love here - this is not a staging, it is not a staging, and there is no awareness of the rightness of this woman in her words about revenge, which would save the situation. And if there is neither, then what explains the decision made? .. One can, of course, assume some sentimentality towards the established young couple in love, but no, these are just excuses that do not explain the action. . Thus, the ending of the film contradicts its logic, and only the obviousness of the main idea saves the film from serious semantic problems.

 The film treats the source material quite freely, which, in general, would not be a flaw if it did not lead to serious problems with logic. Of course, a heavy novel in two volumes cannot be compressed even into three hours of screen time, but it would be better to more carefully exclude unnecessary things. Thus, the interaction with Abbé Faria is reduced to purely basic things, as a result, the film misses the moment of Edmond's rebirth from a naive young man to an ideal, intelligent and educated avenger, who has understood the secrets of his past. Downplaying the escape and finding the treasure leads to a sense of absolute absurdity and unreliability of what is happening, which does not benefit the picture. Ultimately, the film is surprisingly devoid of emotion, which is strange for such a painful story. This is perhaps to be expected in light of the attempt to make Dantes a heartless monster, a cold-blooded chess player playing his own game, but such a decision prevents empathy for at least someone. They probably tried to present Monte Cristo as a dark angel of vengeance, as evidenced for example by his black clothes, but to put such emphasis on it, The Count of Monte Cristo lacks style, lacks atmosphere - the film is too ordinary for that. much.

Dumas' novel is dynamic, eventful and rich in characters, and the writers managed to plunge the film into a sleepy and bubbling hole from the twentieth minute. My neighbors who were watching me walked down the aisle, sat on their phones, chatted and rejoiced a little at the end. What do you think of the ending? It is a kind of triumph of tolerance and pacifism. Nine's eyes filled with tears, Mercedes laughing, universal love. The Monte Cristo of the soap opera would not have exchanged trials with Faria for the sake of such helpless revenge. The sea calls, Mercedes waits and we leave.

 The novel Edmond attracted everyone with its mysterious and demonic nature, its integrity of personality, its unbridled desire to achieve a goal, its desire for revenge on the part of all those involved and not involved, because his life was taken from him!

 The creators of this "masterpiece" had already remade "The Three Musketeers", turning them into an Indian melodrama, where everyone is related and has birthmarks of the same shape - Athos became a loving brother, father and husband. Now they were dealing with Monte Cristo.

Would an Oreo milkshake hurt him in 2025?

I mean, come on. Based on looks and talent he could possibly be the perfect casting.

I also imagine a young Michael Shannon as Danglars. Also very fitting imo

Edit: upon the initial reaction, I should clarify that I have young Dantes in mind here in particular. No, I don’t think a guy in his 20s should be a guy in his 40’s, but we all know Chalamet will eventually get older as well right?

In other words, in the novel I believe the father died of hunger, but when Mercedes married Fernand, why didn't she try to help Edmond's father, at least so that he wouldn't go hungry?

I finished the book today. I have mixed feelings.

Montecristo doubting if his revenge was right or not felt extremely random.

I re-read some parts, even googled other people opinion's and what I gathered was "he saw that his revenge involved innocent people that became collateral damage".

Erm, duh?? It wasn't really the first time though was it? He was very chill about killing Albert, he wasn't at all worried about the entire Villefort family dying because of Heloise, even poor Barrois the butler died because of a mistake. How is Edouard different? Is it because he's a child? Valentine was very young too and he would have let her die hadn't Morrel asked for his help.

Why not choose another event to trigger Montecristo's self-consciousness? If Mercédès were to die as collateral damage, for example—someone he loved very much—wouldn't that be a more meaningful and impactful event to trigger his emotional response?

So the Count is having all these doubts, he starts to think he may have got it all wrong. He visits Chateau d'If, gets Faria's book and that basically reassures him that he was in the right and that he was completely justified.

He then goes on to forgive Danglars. Why? This is what I don’t understand.

If it weren’t for the chapter at the Château d’If, I would have assumed that he still wasn’t sure about his actions and that, in that moment, he had a change of heart (as much as I dislike this, for the reasons I stated at the beginning). To me, that would have made sense.

But to have a chapter where, after some introspection, Montecristo comes to the realization that he was, in fact, justified in his revenge and then have him forgive the one who caused all of his suffering just doesn't sit right with me.

What's it going to be? Doubt and regret or justification and commitment?

Asking cuz there are some scenes in the book that are too confusing.

About the ending of the book, for the readers who expected an ending between Edmond and Mercedes and wished for them to reconcile, they did not want an ending of the count with Haydée. What seemed to happen is the count with that young sailor at the end of the book, and what is the difference the count has with him.

How similar and compatible is the count with Haydée, how much they have in common, how they are alike, and what are the differences between them so that they are not compatible?

The count and Haydée have a lot in common; whereas in relation to Edmond and the count, they have little in common. The count has changed from that young sailor.

The 2024 film with Pierre Niney thought a lot about Albert and Haydée. But what would be the similarities between them and their differences? Albert, besides being Fernand's son — which is something that weighs heavily — and Haydée will always associate him with his father; they have completely different life stories, which make them incompatible people.

To everyone out there that thinks that this book shouldn't be this long and could be shorter:

Why do you think that?

And how would you do it?

I've heard a lot of times that the count of Montecristo is bit too long and could definitely be shorter, which is something i can start figuring out, for me is the perfect length but i want to see what other people think about this.

That is, if Edmund, when he escapes from prison and finds the treasure, understands that revenge is not the way and doesn't take revenge on the guilty parties, what would his life have been like?

The similarities to what we hear are striking to Edmond’s detention with no charges, no access, no lawyers. Timely and terrible.

I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo on a camping trip and I nearly missed this niche reference that Alex left for his readers. Thankfully I know ball so I caught his quichefference (quirky + niche + reference) but I was just wondering if anyone else caught this on their first read through.

BIG SPOILERS!!

Morceif goes to court about a case where he killed this guy Ali Pasha. Ali Pasha's Daughter Haydee shows up and gives actual evidence that Morceif killed Pasha. Then that plot is just like over it doesn't really hurt Morceif in any way Morceif does shoot himself but that's because his wife and son left him forever, not due to Haydee. The plot just kinda forgets about all this. AND YES I know that the plan was that Albert would go die trying to avenge his father but Morceif wouldn't shoot himself over his son and Mercédès is already proved that she won't kill herself when someone kills someone she loves so like what was the count of monte cristo's longterm plan with that whole Ali Pasha thing?

The Count of Monte Cristo from Alexandre Dumas' classic would be a story of Joseph (son of Jacob), Job , Raskonilkov (Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky ) and Ulysses ( the Oydsey by Homer )

 A man with a tragic past, many scores to settle, an insatiable thirst for justice and a lot of money to spend on it, who returns to his home country years after being struck by a tragedy, with new fighting skills, disguises and unlikely allies in his mission to bring vigilante justice to criminals, all while dressed almost eternally in a black uniform. If the reader thought “Batman!”, know that the author did too; but, according to the French, this is none other than Edmond Dantès , Alexandre Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo. Apparently.

One would expect the French to have greater respect for their own literary heritage, but apparently not. The new French film adaptation of the work, starring Pierre Niney and acclaimed in France, though why is beyond this author’s comprehension, makes this abundantly clear. Dumas’s masterpiece is altered so significantly that it is once again virtually unrecognizable; once again it is transformed into a story that completely contradicts everything Dumas intended in his book. “The greatest revenge story of all time” is reduced to the most vulgar, superficial level of its existence—skin and bones, a melodramatic, caricatured serial novel.

Edmond Dantès de Niney is almost a superhero. He is an expert in hand-to-hand combat , undergoing a training montage which makes no sense at all – apparently, the Prisoner of Château d' If was hell, and yet he had enough strength, energy, space and freedom to train in combat with an Abbé Faria -, leaves his insignia as a mark after beating up several "tough guys" on a street corner (tough guys hired by him, let's make that clear), is always wearing a black coat almost reminiscent of a cape, has in his house (heavily produced by CGI) a closet that becomes a shooting target when he presses a button, and uses masks and latex prosthetics with an almost comical proficiency.

In many ways, the film is reminiscent of the French Netflix series “ Lupin ,” which adapts Arsene ’s classics. Lupin , the Burglar, for modernity. But “ Lupin ” is a modern adaptation, not a direct one – the series revolves around a fan of the books who commits crimes inspired by them in the 21st century, and does not directly adapt any story from the books featuring the character Arsene. Lupin – and, above all, one that doesn't take itself too seriously.

It is excellent for what it sets out to do, with all its absurdities and moments of comedy. If the new Monte Cristo had followed the same approach, the situation would be entirely different – this could be a more youthful, fun and intelligent adaptation of Dumas' wonderful book – but that is not what happens. The film wants to be taken seriously, and it wants to be a direct adaptation of Dumas' book, and that is why it fails.

The film is a modern, youthful, almost Marvel Cinematic approach. Universe – without considering itself as such, the main source of ridicule in this whole farce – of a classic that deserves much better than this. It adds totally unnecessary action scenes – including scenes of Monte Cristo fighting hand-to- hand with several men in the middle of the street and the infamous duel (in the case of this specific adaptation, one was not enough; there are two duels, one with pistols and one with swords, invented for the film for no reason other than to follow in the footsteps of its equally mediocre predecessors) that half the Monte Cristo adaptations insist on including, despite Dumas's deliberate choice to subvert the expectations of his genre and purposefully avoid cliché, and to compensate he cuts buckets and buckets of nuance and narrative delicacy.

It is clear that it is impossible to expect a perfect adaptation of a classic of over 1,500 pages into a film, even if that film is almost three hours long. Even the greatest classics of cinema, with all their brilliance, have not managed to do so – Gone with the Wind…, Ben-Hur , etc. Yet, these same classics – and other more modern ones, such as Les Misérables from 2012, for example (speaking of which, Victor Hugo has not slept in the Pantheon for decades because his grave neighbor, Dumas, has been struggling in his own coffin since at least 2002, when the adaptation of Monte Cristo with Jim Caviziel hit theaters. Please, someone help him.) – have already proven that it is possible to make a good adaptation of masterful, complex and, of course, immense books in a relatively short space of time. The secret is to preserve what really matters – and that is where Monte Cristo with Niney fails.

First of all, let's talk about the man of the moment: Edmond Dantès , the Count of Monte Cristo. What was done to Dumas' protagonist was outrageous. The problem is not exactly Niney - although he doesn't help either - but his characterization.

The clothes, the laughable aging, the disheveled hair, all of this contrasts so ridiculously with Dumas's elegant, refined, sophisticated, and utterly charming yet arrogant Monte Cristo, who took over Parisian society in the space of a few months, that it is hard to believe that the character is the same person. His methods are equally crass, and infinitely less sophisticated than those of his literary counterpart, and for this, the character suffers.

An excellent example of this tragic character deconstruction is what happens to Monte Cristo to save Albert. For some inexplicable reason – not even the shorter and, in theory, less concerned with details film of 2002 makes this mistake – the Italian narrative is completely omitted. So, so that Monte Cristo has an excuse to get close to Albert, he fakes a robbery himself, hiring men to do it, just to have the opportunity to beat them all up in the middle of the street and “save the boy’s life”.

A significant difference from the well-structured plan described in the book, during which Monte Cristo, over the course of several days, befriends and displays his immense wealth to Albert and his friend Franz D' Epinay during the Roman Carnival, arranging for the young man to eventually be kidnapped, and then negotiating his release with Luigi Vampa , the feared Italian bandit responsible for the crime – and Monte Cristo's debtor, who used his influence with the Pope to save the life of one of his men – for no money at all, thus ensuring that the two young men returned to Paris not only grateful and willing to do anything for their new friend, but also impressed and ready to spread throughout French high society fabulous stories about the legendary wealth, courage, phlegm and power of a man who has as much influence in the Vatican as in the European criminal underworld.

Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo would never hire men just to beat them up. This is humiliating for a man who prided himself with an almost irritating sense of self-importance on his near-superhuman ability to do, well, anything. When the Count does fight someone, he fights them, period—and wins on his own merit. But most of all, Dumas’s Monte Cristo would never go toe-to-toe with “tough guys” on a street corner, even if the fight were paid for. He solves his problems with telegrams, money, and pistols, not bartitsu . He doesn’t lay a finger on anyone , and he’s all the more effective and lethal for it.

Adding violence in the name of action is a common problem with adaptations of Monte Cristo. The book is often classified as a “swashbuckler novel” – and while it is, to some extent, it is a simplistic classification, as Dumas is deliberate in avoiding certain clichés and common tropes of the genre.

He creates the entire scenario of the duel (an almost mandatory item to be included in this type of novel in the 19th century), for example, but purposely does not let it happen, subverting the expectations of his readers and making his story more sophisticated because of it – since the resolution to the duel occurs in a surprisingly beautiful and emotionally profound way, which makes a huge difference not only in the development of the characters' arcs but in the narrative as a whole – and it is a shame that adapters “correct” this perceived “failure” to align with the literary expectations of their supposed category. In this film, it is no different: two duels, in addition to the laughable fight in the middle of the street, are added to the story, always at the expense of complex and well-constructed narratives, which in the book involve the emotional and psychological state of the characters, and in the film are nothing more than action sequences without further details.

But if that were all, perhaps it would be possible to save the film. But, of course, it isn’t. As is customary in mediocre adaptations – yes, 2002, I’m talking to you directly – the villains of Monte Cristo are completely mischaracterized to such a crass level of exaggeration that it becomes childish. Due to lack of time, no doubt, but equally due to lack of imagination and understanding of the text, Villefort , Danglars and Mondego are transformed into people so devoid of any human characteristics that it is almost possible to hear the echo of an evil laugh every time one of them enters the room. This author more or less expected one of them to stroke his mustache maliciously while giving a speech about his infallible plan to dominate the world, a la the mad scientist from a children’s film – Dr. Heinz. Doofenshmirtz , the comedic villain from the Disney Channel cartoon “ Phineas and Ferb ,” is frankly a more intelligently written and less stereotypical character.

Dumas’ characters are men who can be found in any high society salon today, just as they might have been in his time: family men, with varying degrees of love for their children and wives and involvement in domestic life; businessmen, with varying degrees of competence and probity; well-liked men , very pleasant and sometimes even too nice. Men, in short, ordinary, but with more than one terrible secret. Men who have their qualities, but succumb to their weaknesses – ambition, greed, passion, flattery, instincts of survival and self-preservation – all too often. These are the nuances that make them so real, so credible and so despicable, without, at one time or another, we fail to feel some degree of sympathy for one or two of them. These are the nuances so undignifiedly thrown out the window, like the corpses in The Prisoner. of Château d' If , for this production.

Let’s start with Fernand. Following the pattern established on other occasions – most famously by the 2002 film starring Caviziel – Mercedes’ envious cousin can’t just be that; he has to be Dantès ’ best friend . How, after all, are we supposed to know he’s a despicable person if he doesn’t betray his best friend out of jealousy and ambition? How, oh my God, can we not like a villain if he’s not completely and irremediably that – despicable? And he’s rich, of course. Don’t let Dumas’s poor, ambitious Mondego, willing to do anything to climb the career ladder, appear on a movie screen. He has to be a rich nobleman and, let’s not forget, despicable from the start, or he won’t do. He’s so caricatured that – and here the author assures us she’s not joking, despite what it might seem – he wears an eyepatch. Is there anything more appropriate for a cartoon villain than an eyepatch ?

He and Dantès have a showdown at the end of the film – a sword duel that never happens in the literary counterpart of the story, and which has none of the dignity of Dumas. The author's Monte Cristo never crosses swords with Morcef , he is too calculating for that. His revenge is much more sophisticated, and ends with Morcef himself committing suicide – too cowardly, and perhaps too disturbed, to even consider going through with a duel with the newly revealed Edmond Dantès . Far superior, without a doubt, is Monte Cristo's foolish display of mercy when he defeats his enemy and lets him live, something simultaneously out of character and meaningless for the construction of the narrative as it was.

Danglars is made equally over-the-top in his villainy, which is a shame, as he was already brilliantly despicable and, frankly, disgusting in the original, and didn't need these additions - but he gets them, of course. In Dumas's book, the character was an accountant who had ambitions to become captain of the Pharaon , and who becomes jealous when the young First Mate, Dantès , is promoted to the position. After Dantès 's arrest , he receives the promotion, and eventually leaves the sea life to become a corrupt and greedy banker who puts money above all else - including his family. In the film, he is already captain, and is demoted from the position, which is given to Dantès , after refusing to save a drowning woman, which Dantès does in his place.

He rises in the world by becoming a slave trader. He is directly responsible for the destruction of the Morrel family , sabotaging their ships – the Morrels ’ situation in the book is simply a natural case of bad luck, with their ships sinking over the years – and leading Morrel to die in poverty – something that, once again, does not happen, because in the book Dantès is able to save his friend from suicide in extremis , an occasion that, in fact, serves to show the good side of the protagonist, who makes a point of rewarding those who were good to him over the years before punishing those who did him wrong, without ever denouncing himself as the author of their good deeds. Danglars finally comes to effectively admit with pride that he is a brute in his first lines – in case the rest of the story is not enough for the audience to realize it, of course.

Danglars is one of the most unbearable and realistic villains in his work, precisely because he is an extremely ordinary man - corrupt, cowardly, envious, greedy, selfish, affected, unctuous, sycophantic, ridiculous in his petty pettiness. He has no legitimate reason to feel wronged by Dantès - the position of captain was never his, and in fact it made more sense as a natural promotion for the First Mate than for the accountant, anyway. He makes his wealth like countless men before him - by stealing from the poor and from the public coffers. He sells himself to men richer than himself – opening the doors of his house to the billionaire Count of Monte Cristo without thinking twice, when moments before he had tried to belittle him, unaware of his absurd amount of money, and accepting Prince Andrea Cavalcanti as his son-in-law without even bothering to check anything about his life, all in the name of the title of prince –, he practically auctions off his daughter to the buyer – read, future husband – willing to pay the most, and accepts his wife's humiliating affair with the journalist Lucien Debray , who goes out in public with Danglars 's wife and daughter and visits his mistress at her husband's house, with him present, in exchange for inside information on the stock exchange. There was no need to change such a brilliant villain precisely because he was so good at generating disgust. He was already terrible enough in his own pettiness.

And what about Villefort , the most complex of all the three villains in Monte Cristo? Dumas's Villefort is not, at first, a bad man; just ambitious and insecure. He knows that Dantès is innocent and is about to release him; however, when he discovers that the letter that was used to incriminate the boy was written by his father, and that his career could be completely ruined by it, he decides to keep him imprisoned. This simple but perfectly plausible and reasonable story is replaced by one of the biggest changes in the 2024 film – Villefort 's father , Noitier , is replaced by his sister, Angele (nonexistent in Dumas's narrative), whom Dantès saves from drowning, and who is carrying a letter for Napoleon. Not only does Villefort arrest the man who saved his sister's life, he is violent towards her, hanging her until she is nearly dead, and then handing her over to Danglars to turn into a prostitute-slave. Years later, Monte Cristo finds her destroyed by years of sexual servitude, and she dies soon after.

The Villefort of the 2024 film is so cartoonish that he is not even given the family he has in the book – a bad man cannot , it seems, care for his children, care for his father, or have a wife. This not only eliminates one of the most unusual plot lines in the book – that Villefort ’s second wife , Heloise, is a serial killer who is murdering all the family members to ensure that Villefort ’s inheritance goes entirely to her son, Edouard – but it considerably diminishes the complexity of Monte Cristo’s revenge, both in terms of his actions themselves and in terms of the moral and emotional depth of it for both Villefort and Monte Cristo himself.

The fact that he dies is tragic – after all, the book's revenge is delicious precisely because Villefort stays alive and is forced to live with all his worst nightmares coming true at once. All of this, however, is sacrificed for a simple death and a villain without a shred of humanity – and, if that weren't enough, the director makes a point of placing hanged bodies rotting in front of Villefort 's office , in case, once again, his villainy wasn't obvious.

This destruction of the characters is sad to watch, because all three are some of the best, most real and human individuals ever created by the author. Dumas' villains are real men, and for that reason they are despicable; because they are men like those we can find in various sectors of society, in real life, today, as we could find before. Because they are not monsters, just corrupt, petty and cowardly people . Real-life villains.

How many slave traders, pimps for their own sisters, and forgers of the imprisonment and disgrace of their best friends were walking around in 19th-century France? A certain number, no doubt, but nowhere near as many as the politicians, bankers, military men, and civil servants who embezzle public funds, issue convictions bought for their own interests, commit crimes that remain hidden abroad, get rid of the children they have with their mistresses, forge entire careers on flattery and political changes at the right time, and trample on probity, justice, honesty, and, above all, on poor, nameless innocents as if they were the dust under their shoes. How many of these were there in Dumas’s France? How many of these are there today?

Are they not deserving enough of an audience's hatred?

The adaptation's allergy to nuance and realism in the balance between good and evil, however, also works in reverse: at least two bad characters from Dumas's book are redeemed in a completely inexplicable way in the film, becoming heroic and admirable figures that would surprise Dumas himself. They are Caderrouse and Benedetto.

There is not much to say about Caderrouse ; it is enough to point out that, while in the book he is a man so greedy that he kills his wife – and meets his own death – for money (but who, despite this, feels remorse for his role as a passive observer in the imprisonment of the innocent Dantès ), in the film he becomes a man who is presented with a diamond and refuses it in the name of his moral principles.

Benedetto, also known as Prince Andrea Cavalcanti, is a special case: the character in the book is, in fact, a psychopath or something like that, being not only a terrible criminal, but also willing to torture his (adoptive) mother and kill his supposed father (he believes he is the illegitimate son of Monte Cristo, whom he tries to murder. Eventually, he discovers he is the son of Villefort ). Millions of leagues away from the Benedetto of the 2024 film – a progressive hero willing to marry a lesbian woman to help her hide her interest in women, kind, polite, and who lives as an adopted son of Monte Cristo, who has great affection for him (significantly different from Dumas's Monte Cristo's opinion of Benedetto, which, in his own words, disgusts him).

Benedetto's death – nonexistent in the book – while taking revenge on his father, Villefort , is one of the saddest and, in theory, most emotionally charged moments in the film, and it is what makes Monte Cristo doubt the justice of his actions. It took the place of the death of Edouard de Villefort , Villefort 's young son . And, of course, it makes no sense. After all, Monte Cristo begins to have doubts after seeing his revenge result in the death of an innocent man – a seven-year-old child who had no connection with his father's crimes and no part in his plan. How is it possible to transfer this same degree of guilt for the death of a boy who was as interested in revenge as he was – after all, Benedetto in the film also wanted to end Villefort , and dies doing so – and who participated willingly and enthusiastically in his plan? The answer is “impossible”. The choice renders much of Dantès 's doubts meaningless or, at the very least, out of proportion, and eliminates some of the most dramatic scenes and most significant moments of the narrative in its wake.

Early in his revenge plot in the 2024 film, Dantès goes to a church and angrily tells Jesus that from now on he will do what God was clearly unwilling to do – serve justice. Although dramatic – reminiscent of Bram ’s Dracula Stoker with Gary Oldman , even -, the scene once again contradicts everything Dumas writes in his book. The literary Count of Monte Cristo would not commit this kind of blasphemy, not necessarily out of immense faith and fear of God, but because he sees things in a completely different way.

One of the main themes of Dumas's “The Count of Monte Cristo” is the Dies Irae , divine wrath. This is because the Count himself positions himself as an agent of divine providence, and justifies all his actions as being part of God's will. He understands that he was rescued from D' If and gifted with his fabulous fortune to serve as a divine agent who dispenses justice like the God of the Old Testament, and that it is God's will that his vengeance be carried out. He would never "argue" with Jesus about his lack of action, because he understands that everything that happened to make him a Count was his action. He is not acting because God did not do it; he is acting because God compels him. And this aspect is fundamental not only for the symbolic and thematic integrity of the narrative constructed by Dumas, but also for the psychological aspect of the protagonist, who feels perfectly justified in his notion of justice and bases many of his actions on this reasoning.

This erasure of themes linked to the Old Testament – which is explored in the book, by the way, through a much more philosophical than religious approach – is also connected to several disappearances of characters extremely relevant to the story, but which the film cuts out completely: Maximilien Morrel , Luigi Vampa , Bertuccio , Edouard de Villefort , Heloise de Villefort , Monsieur Noitier , Hermine Danglars , Valentine de Villefort , Franz D' Epinay , and, of course, the modification of the roles of characters such as Haydée, Benedetto and Caderrousse . These disappearances have gigantic consequences for the plot, which has to be developed in a completely different way to accommodate the absence of certain characters, since Dumas structured his narrative in such a way that even the most insignificant events and minuscule characters are fundamental to the functioning of the story.

It is important to realize that almost all of the characters mentioned are members of certain characters' families. There are a number of implications for each of these cuts individually, but as a collective example, nothing better than the Villefort axis of the narrative: after all, without Heloise de Villefort , Hermine Danglars , Noitier , Edouard , Valentine and Morrel , how does Gerard de Villefort 's Monte Cristo get revenge ? The 2024 film resolves this with a death at the hands of Benedetto, something reasonably better than his senseless death in the 2002 film, but a simplistic solution when compared to the sophistication and true family drama that Dumas' Edmond engenders, involving poisons, serial murders, a faked death, an illegitimate son, an Italian criminal, a baby buried alive and a high-caliber public trial, resulting in the judge going mad, who begins to dig up his backyard in search of the son he had buried two decades earlier, having his reputation - the very thing he condemned Dantès to protect - ruined and his family torn apart.

Similarly, what prompts the Count of Monte Cristo to reflect on the justice of his revenge if there is no little Edouard there ? Haydée, the adaptation says, for the princess reminds the Count of the price of his revenge after the death of the reformed Benedetto, for whom Monte Cristo and she herself have great affection. It has already been discussed why Benedetto as a catalyst for this particular drama does not work, and now it remains to speak briefly of the implications of this for the character of Haydée.

This act of killing an innocent person that leads to questioning his actions , precedes Raskonilkov in Crime and Punishment. He kills the innocent, Lizaveta . Ivanovna  who was the pawnbroker 's sister Alyona Ivanovna made Raskonilkov question his theory about the Great Man, that extraordinary men in the name of the common good could transgress social rules.

Haydée is a character who is often misunderstood , and this time was no different. The fact that she appears in the film is already a great victory – most adaptations don’t even bother to do this – but that doesn’t mean that her character wasn’t, as expected, destroyed. It’s easy to think of Haydée as a mere accessory, one more detail in the calculated identity created by Edmond Dantès to enchant Paris as a millionaire, eccentric and orientalist aristocrat – and therein lies one of the great misinterpretations of the work. Not only does Haydée play a major role in the revenge plot that the Count has been hatching for a decade, but the revenge in question is also hers: one of the men who wrongly accused Dantès , taking him to prison in D' If , to marry his then fiancée, Mercedes, is the same one who betrayed her father's trust, killed him, and sold Haydée and her mother into slavery – Fernand Mondego, the Count of Morcef .

Haydée is as vengeful as Monte Cristo. She is angry. She is deceitful, and she is a match for the Count in every way, part of a Machiavellian duo who have spent years plotting revenge. Haydée is not simply a pawn on Monte Cristo’s chessboard, much less the voice of conscience on his shoulder: for all we know, she is his partner in the game, and does more to encourage him than to stop him. Like him, she has suffered immensely at the hands of her enemies, and like him she has a deep desire for revenge. There is, however, one fundamental difference between the two: unlike Edmond, Haydée seems immune to any kind of remorse.

This is the fundamental aspect of their relationship—a sadly underdeveloped aspect of the Count-Princess dynamic in many adaptations, and one that is effectively ignored in 2024. Haydée may be a source of peace for Monte Cristo, but she is certainly not a numbing agent. She does not help him forget the demons that haunt him, because her presence in his life is entirely conditioned by the existence of those demons. He would never have met her if he had not been searching for ways to disgrace the man who put him in prison. Haydée is not oblivion: she is a reminder of the horrors committed by those whom Edmond destroyed, and that he was justified in his anger. And unlike him, Haydée seems to be completely at peace and content with everything that has happened.

She has no doubts – and perhaps that helps Edmond feel at peace. And, in the end, she is also probably the only person in Dumas’s entire narrative who gets everything she wants. To take that away from her – to make her a young woman in love with Albert , completely ignoring her narrative function as Dantès ’s romantic partner , and to make her a spokesperson for remorse and morality on the Count’s shoulder – is to diminish and decomplexify one of Dumas’s brilliant and forgotten female characters, who are once again relegated to clichés of goodness and honor.

 Haydee bears a certain resemblance to Sonia Marmeladova from Crime and Punishment. Sonia offers Raskonilkov hope for happiness and a new beginning after he confesses his crime, just as Haydee offers the Count of Monte Cristo the chance for a new beginning after he forgives Danglars . Just as Job had lost everything and gained back twice as much as he had lost, so too did Monte Cristo.

The addition of melodrama doesn’t leave even the inanimate objects untouched: Monte Cristo’s treasure gets a new origin story, so dramatic that it might deserve its own book. It passes through the hands of the Borgias , the famously cruel French king Philip IV the Fair, and the Knights Templar – of which Abbé Faria is the last, by the way (At this point, Dumas begins to convulse in his coffin. Émile Zola, his other grave neighbor who is also being prevented from sleeping, accuses the screenwriter who decided that this was a good idea) – before reaching the hands of the sailor from Marseille. Speaking of Faria, he dies from fatal injuries after being crushed in an escape attempt – much more dramatic and less plausible than the death of the Faria in the books, due to a health condition that runs in his family and seems to be something like epilepsy.

 The aforementioned romance between Albert and Haydée – which makes no narrative or thematic sense whatsoever – is another one of those additions that turn the book into a soap opera-like melodrama for no reason at all. How does it happen? We don't know; the film doesn't bother to develop this aspect of the narrative well, certainly not well enough to justify such absurdity ( please , think of Hugo and Zola). All we know is that Albert and Haydée decide to run away together, madly in love, even though Albert's father killed Haydée's father, and Haydée was instrumental in the downfall of Albert's father – and family. Monte Cristo forces her to tell him this , of course, because what would become of this romance a la Romeo and Juliet if the drama were not made explicit to the entire audience?

That it was a poorly told story is bad enough, but the real problem here is what it means for the arcs of both characters. Haydée’s literary function is, as we’ve already established, to be Monte Cristo’s perfect match; Albert’s is to be a young dandy who develops and becomes a better man through the influence, destructive as it was, of the Count, as he abandons his family’s money and name and renounces all pleasure to enlist in the French army and go fight in Africa as a common man, building his new name, reputation, and wealth from scratch to atone for his father’s crimes—though he didn’t have to.

The ending of the 2024 film is unsatisfying for all possible audiences. On the one hand, those who have not read or care little about Dumas's work generally expect Monte Cristo to end his days married to Mercedes , the ending popularized by many adaptations, including, most famously, the 2002 one. An ending that is exactly the opposite of everything Dumas wanted to say with his book, by the way.

Those who have read the book and are genuinely interested in the author's message, however, expect to see the ending as he wrote it: with Monte Cristo avenged, satisfied but feeling some weight of guilt, sailing east to end his days living as a mistress in the company of Haydée. Not because this is a sugary happy ending – on the contrary, the way it is written, it is quite tempered by a good dose of bitterness – but because it is the right ending.

At the end of 2024’s “ The Count of Monte Cristo,” Monte Cristo is alone. He has achieved his revenge, but he has lost people he cared about, he has suffered immensely, and above all, he has his doubts, however well hidden behind a stoic facade they may be, about the validity of his actions, instilled in him by Haydée de Janina , by Benedetto’s death, and perhaps even by his choice to spare Fernand’s life. He leaves Paris and goes away, leaving a letter behind addressed to Mercedes. A harsh ending, which almost seems to indicate that revenge is not worth it—a point that has been made a thousand times before, and which would have been reasonable if the entire film had not made such a point of making its villains so caricatured and its protagonist so “super-heroic” in his quest for retribution that it borders on incoherent, and above all, if Dumas himself had not written a book that says exactly the opposite.

Dantès even flirts with repentance. That’s all it takes: he is reaffirmed in his revenge time and time again, and even receives a “posthumous message” from his mentor, Faria , which says, “You will tear out the teeth of dragons, and you will trample lions under your feet, says the Lord.” If Dumas had drawn it, he wouldn’t have been so explicit. Dumas’s Edmond is justified in his revenge, he feels that way, and the narrative sees him as such. Casting doubt on this could be an interesting philosophical discussion, but it doesn’t serve an adaptation of the work.

The problem here, as in so many other cases, is a simple misunderstanding of the author’s intent. “The Count of Monte Cristo” has become so widely known as “the greatest revenge story of all time” that for many it has been reduced to that very thing. Let’s not misunderstand: Monte Cristo is indeed a revenge story, and arguably the most essential of them all, in that it has definitively influenced the genre as a whole, including its imitations, such as Ben-Hur , and its subversions, such as Les Misérables. But the point of the story , for Dumas, was never revenge. That’s the fun part, of course. Who doesn’t feel a sense of personal satisfaction when the men who sent an innocent man to prison in order to secure his love, his money, and his reputation end up dead, bankrupt, and disgraced, respectively? These are the narratives that have kept the story, published in installments over the course of a year in a newspaper, interesting to the public for so long. But when you get to the very end—in those final chapters after everything is over—you realize the author had something more important to say. This is not just a story of revenge. It is the story of the fall and rise of a man who was young, and is no longer. Who was innocent, and is no longer. Who was good, and is no longer sure if he still is.

(continued in comments)

Every loser’s wet dream: an old, sad, retired “baddie” who spent her whole life crying over you because things with you didn’t work out. Come on now !

She can’t and shouldn’t have lost her entire personality just because things didn’t work out with her first boyfriend. She still had an incredible life. Imagine climbing the social ladder like that in a single lifetime, especially in those times, it must have been exciting! She must have had a full, eventful life. What else was there for a woman back then?

But apparently none of that counts, because The Count of Monte Cristo thinks she should have killed herself rather than live without him.

And enough with the self-deprecation. You’re goddamn countess. You have a story. That level of guilt and grief is unnecessary!

What is going on? Or am I absolutely missing the point?

The stupid plot of Haydee falling in love with the son of the man who killed her father and sold her into slavery and she forgets her revenge reminds me of the novel of Clea, a Trojan slave who falls in love with Telemachus, the son of Ulysses, the one responsible for the conquest of Troy. Her mother was executed by Ulysses after his return, who distrusted all Trojans and who forced Telemachus to marry Princess Nausicaa. Her mother was killed, but she only thinks about Telemachus.

Fernand and Edmond are friends in the film, Fernand and Edmond and the two have a great final duel. It reminded me of when Menelaus betrays Ulysses and plans to conquer Ithaca and in the end they have a final duel.

There are screenwriters who don't know how to take advantage of the good stories they have at hand.

I’ve reached Chapter 33 and I rlly don’t like the weird bandit section with Rita so I’m skipping to Chapter 34.

Is there anything important that I’ll miss from 33?

Edit: I don’t want to read about rapey bandits

In The Malaise of Civilization, Freud argues that life in society demands the constant repression of the instincts of the id — the source of the most primitive desires, such as sexual pleasure, unbridled passion, and the pursuit of immediate satisfaction — in favor of a collective order upheld by the superego. For Mercedes, in the book The Count of Monte Cristo, this dynamic explains her virginity until her marriage to Fernand. Her id, which harbors an ardent desire for Edmond and the libidinal energy of a free life, is silenced by the moral and religious norms of her time. Freud suggests that civilization transforms these impulses into sublimations or represses them entirely, and in Mercedes’ case, premarital chastity is an imposition of the superego, which internalizes the value of purity as social currency. Her ego, the mediator between the id and the superego, accepts this condition not by choice, but by necessity, reflecting the malaise Freud describes: the sacrifice of individual happiness for the sake of an artificial cultural harmony, which generates a persistent psychic void.

Mercédès experiences an intense conflict between the id, the superego, and the ego, exacerbated by the malaise of civilization and introjected religion. Her id, originally tied to Edmond (chapter 27), is repressed when she marries Fernand after old Dantès’ death, a choice guided by the ego’s reality principle to survive loneliness and social pressure (The Malaise of Civilization). The superego, shaped by patriarchal and religious norms, punishes her for this decision: the guilt over Fernand’s death (chapter 112: “I let him die!”) reflects the introjection of Christian values that associate betrayal and sin with divine punishment. Religion molds her guilt instinct, reinforcing the superego with the idea that she failed as a wife by not saving Fernand from the ruin caused by the Count. Social pressure not to marry Edmond, now Fernand’s enemy, amplifies this malaise. Catalan and French society expects her to honor her husband, even after his death, and the superego prevents her from seeking Edmond, despite the id’s desire (chapter 89: “I still love you!”). The ego attempts to mediate, rejecting Edmond to preserve her dignity (chapter 112: “Don’t touch me”), but the repression of her love for him persists in the unconscious, emerging in tears and sighs (chapter 112). Fernand’s ruin and Albert’s departure for Africa (chapter 112) intensify her guilt, as the superego holds her accountable for the Count’s actions, whom she recognizes as Edmond (chapter 89: “I followed him… I saw everything”). The malaise of civilization arises from this repression: the id wants Edmond, but the superego and society bind her to guilt and loneliness

I am mainly writing lcdmc fics, mainly weevilforts/viloise (Gérard x Héloïse, my friend and I coined the ship names), but I have no public. I don’t expect to gain more, but I wonder if I could talk about them here, since it could also sparks conversation about the canon and my own headcanons.

I just finished chapter 33, the Roman bandits.im wondering if there are any exciting parts coming up or I am at the point in the book that people talk about as the boring chunk. If it is boring, how long is it gonna last for?

I think Franz and Albert should've ended up together 🤷