Da Vinci Code

I have decided to post something lite for today. Talking to our neighbors last week my wife and I decided to spend a few hours over Memorial Day weekend and see the Da Vinci Code.

I had read the book recently, probably the last person in this country, as had our neighbor's spouse. My wife and our neighbor had not, so after agreeing on a time and mode of transportation--we walked--the four of us saw the movie.

This blog will not be a critique. The web is full of them, posts, editorials, live webcasts, etc. on this subject. Rather, I am going to say two things.

The first of which is that the screenwriter, Akiva Goldsman did an excellent job! If one is to believe what has been in the news months before its release having a screenwriter not consult the author of the book that the film is based on is heresay, on the level that this particular book postulates. With that said, the writing and thus the film, follow the book religiously. How flashbacks, memories, internal conversations characters have with themselves, to an impressive ghost-like transformation of London from 2006 back to the nineteenth-century smoothly jump from page to screen is truly remarkable. Word of advice to J.K. Rowling--hire this guy to transform your 900+ book five to the silver screen. Heavy subject matter was dealt with professionally, least we say reverently, leaving the viewer the opportunity to be entertained by the tale. And folks that is what it is.

Second, the issues addressed in the book and likewise on screen deal not with religiousity or theology, but rather the lesson, if there is one to be taught, about belief. The main character Robert Langdon mentions this to his counterpart at the very end of the film. For those viewers out there who have strong beliefs, this movie will not change anything. For those viewers who read the book and got caught up with the hysteria, there was just enough time between initial book publication and blockbuster release for logic to reasert itself. The movie will not change that either. What the movie will do that is productive and that the hyseria did not is force an inner dialogue within oneself from which stems individual faith.