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Popular Culture Review
writes, “Sophie leaned forward and kissed him again, now on the lips. Their
bodies came together, softly at first, and then completely. When she pulled
away, her eyes were full of promise” (449).
However, the film focuses more on the personal quest of Langdon and
Sophie for hidden truth, for the Grail, for meaning in life. Both are rather
skeptical about organized religion at the start of their journey. Langdon was
raised a Catholic (something new for the film); Sophie does not believe in God,
just that sometimes people can be good or kind. After the film’s intense series of
thrilling events, Langdon recounts how as a child he fell into a well, how he
prayed to Jesus in the well, and that he believes he was saved then (perhaps for a
purpose that is being realized as the journey with Sophie concludes). “Maybe
human is divine,” remarks Langdon to Sophie in their parting scene. For her
part, in the film, Sophie is transformed from a good woman to an even better
woman, who perhaps has Jesus’s blood running in her veins. By the end, she
understands what her guardian-grandfather Jacques Sauniere did for her.
Significantly, Howard’s film modifies the Langdon-Sophie kiss: “He leans in
and kisses her on the head and she pushes into him, so hard; he holds her close”
(from the illustrated screenplay) (Goldsman 203).
So, as we have pointed out, the film is essentially a close adaptation of the
novel in terms of plot and events; however, one important change is the shift in
Langdon’s role to that of a skeptic when, at Chateau Villette, Teabing explains
the centuries-old conspiracies. Langdon speaks for those in the audience who do
not want to accept the story’s premise, and although his initial attitude toward
orthodox reli