The Count of Monte Cristo

Edmond Dantès’ future looks bright, he’s just been made captain of a ship and is about to marry beautiful Mercedes, the love of his life. He does not know he has enemies who despise his good fortune and conspire to have him wrongly accused of the crime of being a Bonapartist. After his arrest, the deputy-prosecutor of Marseille also disregards the truth to protect his own interests and has Edmond thrown into the dungeons of the notorious Castle d’If without trial. Ten years pass in his squalid cell, and Edmond has almost given up all hope when the Abbé Faria, a fellow inmate who has been digging an escape tunnel for many years, makes a miscalculation and lands up in Edmond’s cell. Now that there’s a secret passageway between their cells, the men become firm friends, and Faria, a learned man, educates Edmond on a vast array of topics. He also speaks of a hidden treasure that will be theirs when they finish the tunnel and escape. But Faria dies, and Edmond escapes alone. Finally free, his primary mission is to avenge himself on those who destroyed his life. First, he finds the treasure and transforms himself into the wealthy, enigmatic Count of Monte Cristo. He discovers it was Danglars, a fellow seaman, and Mercedes’ cousin, Fernand, who betrayed him and learns why Villefort, the prosecutor, got rid of him. Edmond goes to Paris, where all three men are now living. Fernand has married Mercedes, as was his plan all along. Danglars is a wealthy banker, and Villefort, the Chief Prosecutor of Paris. Monte Cristo infiltrates their lives. No one recognizes him. Only Mercedes is uneasy and suspects his true identity. Coldly and methodically, he sets about annihilating their lives, not with threats of violence but by ingenuity, using their weaknesses and past actions to bring about their downfall, hoping to regain Mercedes, his lost love. But his ruthless acts of revenge have taken their toll on him, to the extent he’s lost his capacity to truly love again.