The New Yorker review of the Da Vinci Code

This is one of the most gloriously snarky pieces of writing I have had the pleasure of reading in
a long time. I am quoting as well as posting the link; hope you don't mind.

Barbara

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/content/articles/060529crci_cinema



HEAVEN CAN WAIT
by ANTHONY LANE
“The Da Vinci Code.”
Issue of 2006-05-29
Posted 2006-05-22

The story of “The Da Vinci Code” goes like this. A dead Frenchman is found laid
out on the floor of the Louvre. His final act was to carve a number of bloody markings
into his own flesh, indicating, to the expert eye, that he was preparing to roll in fresh
herbs and sear himself in olive oil for three minutes on each side. This, however, is not
the conclusion reached by Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a professor of symbology at
Harvard, who happens to be in Paris. Questioned by Bezu Fache (Jean Reno), the
investigating policeman at the scene, Langdon starts rabbiting about pentacles and
pagans and God knows what. But what does God know, exactly? And can He keep
His mouth shut?

Help arrives in the shape of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a police cryptographer.
She turns out to be the grand-daughter of the deceased, and a dab hand at reversing down
Paris streets in a car the size of a pissoir. This is useful, since she and Langdon are soon on
the run, convinced that Fache is about to nail the professor on a murder charge— the
blaming of Americans, on any pretext, being a much loved Gallic sport. Our hero, needing
somebody to trust, does the same dumb thing that every fleeing innocent has done since
Robert Donat in “The Thirty-nine Steps.” He and Sophie visit a cheery old duffer in the country-
side and spill every possible bean. In this case, the duffer is Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen),
who lectures them on the Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D. We
get a flashback to the council in question, and I must say that, though I have recited the
Nicene Creed throughout my adult life, I never realized that it was originally formulated in
the middle of a Beastie Boys concert.

Fache is not the only hunter on Langdon’s scent. There is also Silas (Paul Bettany), a cowled
albino monk whose hobbies include self-flagellation, multiple homicide, and irregular Latin
verbs. He works for Opus Dei, the Catholic organization so intensely secretive that its American
headquarters are tucked away in a seventeen-story building on Lexington Avenue. Silas answers
to Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), who in turn answers to his cell phone, his Creator, and not
much else. Between them, they track Langdon and Sophie to England, where a new villain,
hitherto suspected by nobody except the audience, is prevented from shooting his quarry
because, unusual for London, there is a gaggle of nuns in the way—God’s Work if ever I saw it,
although I wouldn’t say so to a member of Opus Dei.

The task of the Bishop and his hit man is to thwart the unveiling of what Teabing modestly calls
“the greatest secret in modern history,” so powerful that, “if revealed, it would devastate the very
foundations of Christianity.” Later, realizing that this sounds a little meek and mild, he stretches it
to “the greatest coverup in human history.” As a rule, you should beware of any movie in which
characters utter lines of dialogue whose proper place is on the advertising poster. (Just imagine
Sigourney Weaver, halfway through “Alien,” turning to John Hurt and explaining, “In space, no one
can hear you scream.”) There is a nasty sense in “The Da Vinci Code” that, not unlike Langdon, we
are being bullied into taking its pronouncements at face value. Such nagging has a double effect.
First, any chance to enjoy the proceedings as hokum—as a whip-cracking quest along the lines of
“Raiders of the Lost Ark”—is rapidly stifled and stilled. Second, one’s natural reaction to arm-twisters
of any description is to wriggle free, turn around, and kick them in the pentacles. So here goes.

There has been much debate over Dan Brown’s novel ever since it was published, in 2003, but no
question has been more contentious than this: if a person of sound mind begins reading the book
at ten o’clock in the morning, at what time will he or she come to the realization that it is unmit-
igated junk? The answer, in my case, was 10:00.03, shortly after I read the opening sentence:
“Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum’s
Grand Gallery.” With that one word, “renowned,” Brown proves that he hails from the school of
elbow-joggers—nervy, worrisome authors who can’t stop shoving us along with jabs of information
and opinion that we don’t yet require. (Buried far below this tic is an author’s fear that his command
of basic, unadorned English will not do the job; in the case of Brown, he’s right.) You could dismiss
that first stumble as a blip, but consider this, discovered on a random skim through the book:
“Prominent New York editor Jonas Faukman tugged nervously at his goatee.” What is more, he does
so over “a half-eaten power lunch,” one of the saddest phrases I have ever heard.

Should we mind that forty million readers—or, to use the technical term, “lemmings”—have followed
one another over the cliff of this long and laughable text? I am aware of the argument that, if a tale
has enough grip, one can for a while forget, if not forgive, the crumbling coarseness of the style;
otherwise, why would I still read “The Day of the Jackal” once a year? With “The Da Vinci Code,” there
can be no such excuse. Even as you clear away the rubble of the prose, what shows through is the folly
of the central conceit, and, worse still, the pride that the author seems to take in his theological
presumption. How timid—how undefended in their powers of reason—must people be in order to yield
to such preening? Are they reading “The Da Vinci Code” because everybody on the subway is doing the
same, and, if so, why, when they reach their stop, do they not realize their mistake and leave it on the
seat, to be gathered up by the next sucker? Despite repeated attempts, I have never managed to
crawl past page 100. As I sat down to watch “The Da Vinci Code,” therefore, I was in the lonely, if
enviable, position of not actually knowing what happens.

Stumbling out from the final credits, tugging nervously at my goatee, I was none the wiser. The film
is directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman, the master wordsmith who brought us
“Batman & Robin.” I assumed that such an achievement would result in Goldsman’s being legally
banned from any of the verbal professions, but, no, here he is yet again. As far as I am qualified to
judge, the film remains unswervingly loyal to the book, displaying an obedience that Silas could not
hope to match. I welcome this fidelity, because it allows us to propose a syllogism. The movie is baloney;
the movie is an accurate representation of the book; therefore, the book is also baloney, although it
takes even longer to consume. Movie history is awash, of course, with fine pictures that have been made
from daft or unreadable books; indeed, you are statistically more likely to squeeze a decent movie out
of a potboiler than you are out of a novel of high repute. The trouble with Howard’s film is that it is far
too dense and talkative to function efficiently as a thriller, while also being too credulous and childish
to bear more than a second’s scrutiny as an exploration of religious history or spiritual strife. There is
plenty going on here, from gunfights to masked orgiastic rituals and mini-scenes of knights besieging
Jerusalem, yet the outcome feels at once ponderous and vacant, like a damp and deconsecrated
Victorian church.

This is grim news for Tom Hanks, who has served Howard gamely in the past. How does the genial
mermaid-lover of “Splash,” or the jockish team player of “Apollo 13,” feel about being stranded in this
humorless grind? Apart from Paul Bettany, who finds a leached and pale-eyed terror in his avenging
angel, the other players seem bereft. Molina, so violently vulnerable in “Spider-Man 2,” is given no room
to breathe, and, as for Audrey Tautou, it is surely no coincidence that Howard sought out and hired
almost the only young French actress who emits not a hint of sexual radiation. “The Da Vinci Code”
may ask us to believe that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, that she bore him a child, and that the
Catholic Church has spent two thousand years not merely concealing this but enforcing its distaste
for the feminine (and thus for all bodily delight), but did the movie have to be quite so pallid and
prudish about breaking the news? Whose side is it on, anyway?

Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, except at Columbia Pictures,
where the power lunches won’t even be half-started. The Catholic Church has nothing to fear from
this film. It is not just tripe. It is self-evident, spirit-lowering tripe that could not conceivably cause a
single member of the flock to turn aside from the faith. Meanwhile, art historians can sleep easy
once more, while fans of the book, which has finally been exposed for the pompous fraud that it is,
will be shaken from their trance. In fact, the sole beneficiaries of the entire fiasco will be members
of Opus Dei, some of whom practice mortification of the flesh. From now on, such penance will be
simple—no lashings, no spiked cuff around the thigh. Just the price of a movie ticket, and two and
a half hours of pain.
.

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