Erin
My first recommendation is the musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber The Phantom of the Opera. The 2004 adaptation is a very decent film version starring Emmy Rossum and Gerard Butler. It is a work based on the novel by Gaston Leroux the Phantom of the Opera and covers the theme of an outcast trying to find his place. It is also a very tragic story of a disfigured man and elements similar to this one and has hauntingly beautiful music.
As for literature that is relevant, I am in some ways reminded of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. There is a fair bit of drama in this gothic novel as well as tragedy. If you want another dark, captivating story I highly recommend checking that out.
Claire
A Movie Adaptation for Your Consideration: I can’t not say the 1996 Disney adaptation I’M SORRY. Are there better adaptations of the novel? Yes. Such as ones that actually follow the plot instead of making it super happy and child friendly, which the book is decidedly not? Sure. BUT I REFUSE. THAT SOUNDTRACK GIVES ME CHILLS.
Another Recommendation for the Road: If you have a hankering for the endless and hopeless misery of the outcasts and the poor, beyond the obvious Les Miserables, how about some of that sweet, sweet disgustingly upsetting grimness of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? Misery for a new generation, published in 1906 as an “expose” but it is in fact a fictionalized novel, though very representative of the reality of the workers and families encompassed by the meatpacking industry. Everyone suffers! Most die! It’s a real get down. As in on the ground in the filth in wretched sadness and possibly fatality. Woooooo….