[Cinéma] Pierre Niney under the mask of revenge

New adaptation by Alexandre Dumas, Le Comte de Monte Cristo continues the epic breath of Three Musketeerscarried this time by the shoulders of Pierre Niney alone.

A great fresco of adventures for all audiences, carried by the romantic density of Alexandre Dumas, Le Comte de Monte Cristo presents itself, with its 43 million euros, as the biggest French production of the year. Exceptionally, the film will not be released on Wednesday, the usual day of theatrical releases, but on Friday; an American-style choice, but strategic, two days before the Cinema Festival and its 5-euro screenings throughout France.

This film, “it is at the same time a great epic adventure, a tortured hero, a tragic story, nuance in the feelings”, said Pierre Niney before the film’s climb to Cannes, presented out of competition on last month.

With this role, the 35-year-old actor follows in the artistic footsteps of Gérard Depardieu, who played Edmond Dantès on TV in the 1990s, or, well before, in those of Jean Marais. A bet for the man who was the youngest resident of the Comédie-Française, before launching into cinema, where he won a César for best actor for Yves Saint Laurent (Jalil Lespert, 2015), at 25 years old.

Edmond Dantès, hero with a thousand identities, whose adventures take place over several decades, is a golden role for an actor: “I worked to go from innocence to confinement, to regret, then to despair and to madness”, rewinds Pierre Niney, who wanted to return “to the origin and the darkness” of the character. “I am attracted to roles of liars, people who conceal.”

“Mysterious cat”

In the film, as in Dumas’ work, Edmond Dantès is unjustly locked up in the Château d’If, from which he manages to escape. His revenge, mulled over for decades during which he became the Count of Monte Cristo, will be relentless. And will end up driving him crazy.

“He is both a vigilante, but also the devil, by dint of being obsessed with his revenge,” explains the actor who learned Italian words and recounts a very physical role, for which he took horse riding, fencing and freediving lessons, with a world champion in the discipline. For the prison escape sequence off the coast of Marseille, “I had to be able, at a depth of 15 m, to get out of a bag, without a bottle, in pure apnea,” he says.

To condense the nearly 2,000 pages of the original work, the film, lasting three hours, takes some liberties in terms of the storyline, multiplying the ellipses. But it retains the epic breath and the pleasure of adventure, with even a few scenes at the Indiana Jones.

Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte, screenwriters of the two parts of the Three Musketeers (Martin Bourboulon, 2023), are this time entirely in charge of the project, the script and the direction. The choice of Niney was obvious for Matthieu Delaporte: “Pierre is a mysterious cat, an extremely fine actor, capable of transforming himself into many characters,” he salutes.

In the rest of the cast, we find Anaïs Demoustier, Anamaria Vartolomei (also starring in Mariacurrently in cinemas) or the Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, member of the last Cannes jury.

Dantes versus Artus

The exit of Count of Monte-Cristo is a big challenge for its producer, Dimitri Rassam, and Pathé, already behind the Three Musketeers, with the ambition of also exporting popular French cinema internationally. The first part of Three Musketeers had 3.4 million admissions in France, the second 2.6 million. But when it comes to box office, nothing is ever certain.

By chance of the Cannes calendar, the team of Monte Cristo had climbed the steps at the same time as the film crew A little something extra, with a troupe of actors with mental disabilities. The comedy phenomenon directed by Artus, released at the beginning of May and still in theaters, has more than 7 million admissions in France, with a budget much lower than Le Comte de Monte Cristo (around 6 million euros).

In Luxembourg too, it is on track to secure a seventh consecutive week in the top 5 at the box office. “There is zero recipe, that’s what we see with Artus’ film, you never know what’s going to happen. For small films as well as big ones,” philosopher Alexandre de La Patellière.