A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Adam Shankman
Produced by	Denise Di Novi Hunt Lowry
Written by	Nicholas Sparks (Novel) Karen Janszen
Starring	Shane West Mandy Moore
Music by	Mervyn Warren
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Editing by	Emma E. Hickox
Studio	Gaylord Films Di Novi Pictures Pandora Cinema
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	January 25, 2002 (2002-01-25)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$11 million
Box office	$47,494,916

A Walk to Remember is a 2002 American coming-of-age teen romantic drama film based on the 1999 romance novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Shane West and Mandy Moore, was directed by Adam Shankman, and produced by Denise Di Novi and Hunt Lowry for Warner Bros. The novel is set in the 1950s while the film is set in 1998.

Plot

When a prank on fellow high-school student Clay Gaphardt goes wrong, popular but rebellious Landon Carter (Shane West) is threatened with expulsion. His punishment is mandatory participation in various after-school activities, such as the drama club, where he is forced to interact with quiet, kind and bookish Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore), a girl he has known for many years but to whom he has rarely ever spoken. Their differing social statures leave them worlds apart, despite their close physical proximity.

When Landon has trouble learning his lines he asks Jamie for help. They begin practicing together at her house after school. At first Landon is only using Jamie for her help with the play, and treats her coldly when his other friends are around. But as he spends more and more time with her, he is surprised to find she is far from the person he thought she was, and begins to question who he really wants to impress.

During the play, Jamie astounds Landon and the entire audience with her beauty and voice, and Landon kisses her on the stage. Afterwards, he tries to get closer to her, but she repeatedly rejects him. Soon thereafter, however, Landon's friends publicly humiliate Jamie by altering a photograph of her and placing her head on the body of a scantily clad woman. Landon angrily confronts his former friend, punching him and publicly siding with Jamie. Afterwards, Landon and Jamie begin a relationship in which Landon dedicates most of his time to her. He discovers that she has a wish list, and sets out to make all her ambitions come true, such as taking her to a state border so that she can stand on either side of the line and, thus, be in two places at once.

In the final stretch of the movie, Jamie confesses to Landon that she is afflicted by terminal leukemia and has stopped responding to treatments. Landon gets upset at first, and Jamie tells him the reason she didn't tell him is that she was moving on with her life and using the time she had left but then Landon happened and she fell in love with him.

Soon, word gets out about Jamie's illness. Eric, Landon's best friend, comes and tells him how sorry he is and that he didn't understand. Other friends come and apologize too.

Jamie's cancer gets worse, her father rushes her to the hospital where he meets Landon. Landon doesn't leave Jamie's side until her father practically has to pry him away. Jamie's father sits with Jamie and tells her that "If I've kept you too close, it's because I want to keep you longer."

Landon continues to fulfill various wishes on Jamie's list, such as building her a telescope so she can see a comet. Through this process, Landon and Jamie learn more about the nature of love. Jamie dies later, but only after the couple are married in the same chapel as was Jamie's deceased mother, the event that topped Jamie's wish list. Landon himself becomes a better person through Jamie's memory, achieving the goals that he set out to do, like she did.

Four years later, Landon visits Jamie's father and shows that he is still a better person because of Jamie by informing her father that he has been accepted into medical school; prior to falling in love with Jamie, he had no plans for his future after high school. Jamie's father tells him that both he and his mother are proud of him and that Jamie would be too. Landon tells him that he's sorry he never granted Jamie's wish to witness a miracle. Jamie's father tells him that she did in fact witness one: it was him. Carrying that thought, Landon goes for a walk on the docks where he narrates saying that Jamie changed him forever and that while he misses her, he believes their love is like the wind. He can't see it, but he knows it's there. The movie ends with Landon looking at the sunset, smiling.

Cast

• Shane West as Landon Rollins Carter
• Mandy Moore as Jamie Elizabeth Sullivan
• Peter Coyote as Reverend Hegbert Sullivan
• Daryl Hannah as Cynthia Carter
• Lauren German as Belinda
• Clayne Crawford as Dean
• Al Thompson as Eric
• Paz De La Huerta as Tracie
• David Lee Smith as Dr. Carter
• Jonathon Parks Jordan as Walker
• Matt Lutz as Clay Gephardt

Background and production

The inspiration for A Walk to Remember was Nicholas Sparks' sister, Danielle Sparks Lewis, who died of cancer in 2000. In a speech he gave after her death in Berlin, the author admits that "In many ways, Jamie Sullivan was my younger sister". The plot was inspired by her life; Danielle met a man who wanted to marry her, "even when he knew she was sick, even when he knew that she might not make it".^[1] Both the book and film are dedicated to Danielle Sparks Lewis.

It was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina at the same time as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) and the TV show Dawson's Creek were being filmed there. Many of the sets were from Dawson's Creek (1998) - particularly the school, hospital and Landon's home.^[2] The total shooting time was only 39 days, despite Mandy Moore being able to only work 10 hours a day because she was a minor.^[2] Daryl Hannah wore a brown wig over her character. Hannah had also received a collagen injection in her lips, which went awry and caused noticeable swelling. By the end of filming, however, the symptoms were less obvious.^[3]

Release

Box office

The film opened at No. 3 at the U.S. box office raking in $12,177,488 in its opening weekend, behind Snow Dogs and Black Hawk Down.

Critical reception

The film was met with generally negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 27% of 102 critics gave the film positive reviews, with an average rating of 4.1 out of 10.^[4] Entertainment Weekly retitled the film "A Walk to Forget".^[5] Time named it one of the top 10 worst chick flicks.^[6]

However, A Walk to Remember found a warmer reception with the general public, particularly in the Christian community due to the film's moral values; as one reviewer approvingly noted, "The main character is portrayed as a Christian without being psychopathic or holier-than-thou".^[7] Roger Ebert praised Mandy Moore and Shane West for their "quietly convincing" acting performances.^[8] Even though not a critical success, it was a modest box office hit, earning $41,281,092 in the United States alone,^[9] and a sleeper hit in Asia. The total revenue generated worldwide was $47,494,916. Despite the bad reviews, the movie was praised by audiences, has over 8.5 million likes on its Facebook page, has 79% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, and holds a score of 7.1 on the Internet Movie Database.

Awards

Moore beat out fellow pop star Britney Spears, who starred in Crossroads, to win two Teen Choice Awards. At the MTV Movie Awards, Moore won the "Best Breakthrough Female Performance" for her role.

Soundtrack

The film's soundtrack features five songs by Mandy Moore and others by acts Switchfoot, Rachael Lampa and many more.

The lead song "Cry" was originally released on Moore's second studio album Mandy Moore. The soundtrack also includes two versions of Switchfoot's song "Only Hope" including the version Moore sang in the film.

Mandy Moore's manager, Jon Leshay, the musical supervisor for A Walk to Remember, "instantly wanted" Switchfoot's music to be a vital part of the film after hearing them. He later became Switchfoot's manager.^[10] When they were approached to do the film, the band was unfamiliar with Moore or her music (despite her status as a pop star with several hits on the charts). Before their involvement with A Walk to Remember, Switchfoot was only recognized in their native San Diego and in Contemporary Christian music circles, but have since gained mainstream recognition, with a double platinum album, The Beautiful Letdown which included hits such as "Meant to Live" and "Dare You To Move".

2002 CD Soundtrack Tracklisting

1. "Dare You To Move" - Patrick Loyola
2. "Cry" - Mandy Moore
3. "Someday We'll Know" - Mandy Moore and Jonathan Foreman – (Cover of New Radicals)
4. "Dancin' In The Moonlight" - Toploader – (Cover of King Harvest)
5. "Learning To Breathe" - Switchfoot
6. "Only Hope" - Mandy Moore as character Jamie Sullivan, with dialogue by Shane West as character Landon Carter – (Cover of Switchfoot)
7. "It's Gonna Be Love" - Mandy Moore
8. "You" - Switchfoot
9. "If You Believe" - Rachael Lampa
10. "No One" - Cold
11. "So What Does It All Mean?" - West, Gould, & Fitzgerald
12. "Mother, We Just Can't Get Enough" - New Radicals
13. "Cannonball" - The Breeders (©2003 Special Expanded Edition Bonus Track)
14. "Friday On My Mind" - Noogie (©2003 Special Expanded Edition Bonus Track)
15. "Empty Spaces" - Fuel (©2003 Special Expanded Edition Bonus Track)
16. "Only Hope" - Switchfoot

- CD includes multi-media track of Mandy Moore video "Cry."

Complete Listing of Music in the Movie^[11]

1. "Cannonball" — The Breeders
2. "So What Does It All Mean?" — West, Gould, & Fitzgerald
3. "Empty Spaces" — Fuel
4. "Lighthouse" — Mandy Moore
5. "Friday on My Mind" — Noogie
6. "Anything You Want" — Skycopter 9
7. "Numb in Both Lips" — Soul Hooligan
8. "Tapwater" — Onesidezero
9. "If You Believe" — Rachael Lampa
10. "No Mercy" — Extra Fancy
11. "No One" — Cold
12. "Enough" — Matthew Hager
13. "Mother, We Just Can't Get Enough" — New Radicals
14. "Only Hope" — Mandy Moore
15. "Get Ur Freak On" — Missy Elliott
16. "Flood" — Jars of Clay
17. "Dancin' In The Moonlight" — Toploader
18. "Someday We'll Know" — Mandy Moore and Jonathan Foreman
19. "Learning to Breathe" — Switchfoot
20. "All Mixed Up" — 311
21. "Dare You To Move" — Switchfoot
22. "You" — Switchfoot
23. "It's Gonna Be Love" — Mandy Moore
24. "Only Hope" — Switchfoot
25. "Cry" — Mandy Moore

Comparisons to novel

While there are many similarities to the novel by Nicholas Sparks, many changes were made. On his personal website, Sparks explains the decisions behind the differences. For example, he and the producer decided to update the setting from the 1950s to the 1990s, worrying that a film set in the 50s would fail to draw teens. "To interest them," he writes, "we had to make the story more contemporary." To make the update believable, Landon's pranks and behavior are worse than they are in the novel; as Sparks notes, "the things that teen boys did in the 1950s to be considered a little 'rough' are different than what teen boys in the 1990s do to be considered 'rough.'"

Sparks and the producer also changed the play in which Landon and Jamie appear. In the novel, Hegbert wrote a Christmas play that illustrated how he once struggled as a father. However, due to time constraints, the sub-plot showing how he overcame his struggles could not be included in the film. Sparks was concerned that "people who hadn't read the book would question whether Hegbert was a good father", adding that "because he is a good father and we didn't want that question to linger, we changed the play."^[12]

A significant difference is that at the end of the novel, unlike the film, it is ambiguous whether Jamie died even though during the 1950s cancer meant death. Sparks says that he had written the book knowing she would die, yet had "grown to love Jamie Sullivan", and so opted for "the solution that best described the exact feeling I had with regard to my sister at that point: namely, that I hoped she would live."^[13]

References

External links

• Official website
• A Walk to Remember at the Internet Movie Database
• A Walk to Remember at AllRovi
• A Walk to Remember at Rotten Tomatoes
• A Walk to Remember at Box Office Mojo