A financial crash, a government shut-down, and a banker grows rich off another man’s fortune,
while that man’s family sinks deeper and deeper into debt.
Their lives are all intertwined with a young aristocrat,
an immigrant family, and a whimsical, opportunistic thief,
all struggling with newfound poverty.
But in the melodramatic universe,
deliverance comes from unexpected places.
A genre-defining melodrama
from one of the 19th century’s masters
with quite a lot to tell us today.