A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember
Directed by	Jim Bosgraaf
Produced by	Denise Di Novi Hunt Lowry
Written by	Nicholas Sparks (novel) Karen Janszen (screenplay)
Starring	Shane West Mandy Moore
Music by	Mervyn Warren
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Editing by	Emma E. Hickox
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	January 23, 2002 (2002-01-23)
Running time	102 mins
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$11,800,000
Gross revenue	$47,494,916

A Walk to Remember is a 2002 romance film based on the 1999 romance novel with the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The movie stars pop singer Mandy Moore and Shane West. The movie was directed by Adam Shankman and produced by Denise DiNovi and Hunt Lowry for Warner Bros. The novel, written by Sparks, is set in the 1950s while the film is set in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Plot

When a prank on a fellow high school student goes wrong, popular but rebellious Landon Rollins Carter (Shane West) is threatened with expulsion. His punishment is mandatory participation in various after-school activities, such as tutoring disadvantaged children and performing in the drama club's spring musical. At these functions, he is forced to interact with quiet, bookish Jamie Elizabeth Sullivan (Mandy Moore), the only daughter of their church's pastor, and a girl he has known for many years but to whom he has rarely if ever spoken. Their differing social statures leave them worlds apart, despite their close physical proximity.

Landon has difficulty learning his lines for the spring play, so he asks Jamie to assist him. She decides to help him but under one condition: Landon must promise not to fall in love with her. He chuckles at the strange request and doubts that he could ever fall in love with her. Landon is not attracted to the quiet, conservative, or obedient girls in town. He is drawn to the pretty, popular, and outgoing girls.

Landon and Jamie begin practicing together at her house after school. Landon and Jamie also begin to spend more time together and begin to develop a friendship. Landon discovers that Jamie’s wish list of everything she aspires to accomplish in life includes getting a tattoo, being in two places at once, and being married in the same church as her parents. One day, Jamie approaches Landon at his locker, where he is hanging out with some of his friends. When Jamie asks Landon if they are still on for practice that afternoon he smirks, "In your dreams." His friends laugh and Landon's smirk falters as Jamie's face fills with betrayal and embarrassment. That afternoon, Landon arrives at Jamie's house, hoping that Jamie will still agree to help him. But she refuses to open the door. When she eventually does, she sarcastically remarks that they can be "secret friends." She slams the door in his face when he agrees. Landon eventually learns the script by himself.

During the play, Jamie astounds Landon and the entire audience with her beauty and voice. Landon kisses Jamie at the end of the play, which was not in the script. Landon tries to get close to Jamie, but she repeatedly rejects him. It is only after Landon's friends play a malicious joke by making a picture of Jamie into a pornographic one that Jamie agrees to get to know Landon. After he punches out Dean and shuns Belinda (his friends who played the joke), he takes Jamie home.

The two pursue a relationship. He asks if she will go to dinner with him, but she replies that she is not allowed to date. He wants the date so badly that he goes to her father in the church and asks him if he can take Jamie out to dinner. Her father says no. Landon asks for her father to have faith in him. He eventually says yes. Landon takes her out to dinner and dances with her, something he never did for anyone else. Landon then sets out to help her accomplish a few things on her wish list. One memorable date had Landon taking Jamie to the state line. He excitedly positions her to straddle the line in just the right way, and when Jamie asks him what he's doing he tells her, "You're in two places at one time." Her face lights up with joy, as she realizes that Landon set out to make her impossible dreams come true. One evening, Landon asks her to find a star for him with her telescope. When she asks why he is looking for that particular star, Landon replies: "Because I had it named for you." She embraces him and whispers, "I love you" to him for the first time.

One evening, Jamie finally tells Landon that she has terminal leukemia and has stopped responding to treatments. Landon gets upset at first. Jamie tells him that the reason why she didn't tell him was because 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. Jamie starts to break down as she says to Landon, "I do not need a reason to be angry with God," and she flees.

Landon goes to his cardiologist father's house and asks him to help Jamie. His father hesitates a bit, as leukemia is not his specialty, and says that he needs to examine Jamie and know her medical history before he could do anything. Landon responds by leaving in a huff.

Landon and Jamie make up the next day, by hugging and he tells her that he will be there for her always. Soon, word gets out about Jamie's illness. Eric, Landon's best friend who had also participated in the prank on Jamie, comes and tells him how sorry he is and that he didn't understand. Later, Dean and Belinda both come and apologize.

Jamie's cancer gets worse until she collapses in her father's arms. He 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 and tells her that "If I've kept you too close, it's because I wanted to keep you longer." Jamie tells her father that she loves him so much and he eventually breaks down into tears.

The next day, Landon comes to the hospital and sees Jamie being wheeled out of the ward. He asks Jamie what's going on and she replies by asking him to thank his father for the help. Landon asks Jamie's father what she means. He tells him that Landon's father is going to pay for private homecare for Jamie. Landon is stunned, so later in that night, he knocks on his father's front door. His father answers. Landon whispers "thank you" and his father hugs him. With all the exhaustion and fear billowing over, Landon breaks down in tears in his dad's arms.

Landon continues to fulfill various wishes on Jamie's list, such as building her a telescope so she can see a comet. Her father, who at first didn't approve of him, helps out. After Jamie sees the comet through the telescope, Landon proposes marriage with Jamie accepting. Through this process, Landon and Jamie learn more about the nature of love. The movie ends with Jamie's death, 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. It is obvious that Jamie helped him focus and become a better person. For example, he reveals he has finished college and has been accepted into medical school; prior to meeting her he had no plans for life after high school. He tells Jamie's father that he is sorry he could not grant Jamie's wish to witness "a miracle" before she died. Her father replies by saying, "She did. It was you." In the end, Landon remarks that Jamie saved his life, she taught him everything about life, hope & the long journey ahead, and how he will always miss her yet that their love is like the wind in which he can't see it, but he can feel it.

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 movie are dedicated to Danielle Sparks Lewis.

This movie 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 the TV show 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 pink hair from another movie, that closest matched Shane West's hair in the movie when playing her character. Hannah also had collagen problems which made her lips swollen. By the end of the movie, however, the symptoms were less obvious.^[3]

Cast

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

Reception

The film was generally met with negative reviews by critics. Entertainment Weekly retitled the movie "A Walk to Forget"^[4] and the average rating of 92 professional reviews as compiled by Rotten Tomatoes is 4.1 out of 10.^[5] However, A Walk to Remember found a warm reception 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".^[6] Roger Ebert praised Mandy Moore and Shane West for their "quietly convincing" acting performances.^[7] Even though not a critical success, it was a modest box-office hit, earning $41,281,092 in the United States alone,^[8] and a sleeper hit in Asia. The total revenue generated worldwide was $47,494,916. The film has proven to be a common favorite amongsts teenagers.

Moore beat out fellow pop star Britney Spears, who starred in Crossroads, to win two Teen Choice Awards. Moore was also nominated for "Film — Choice Actress, Drama/Action Adventure" but lost to Natalie Portman for her role in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

At the MTV Movie Awards, Moore won the "Breakthrough Female Performance" for her role.

Soundtrack

The movie'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 movie after hearing them. He later became Switchfoot's manager.^[9] 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.

Track listing:

1. "Dare You To Move" - Switchfoot
2. "Cry" - Mandy Moore
3. "Someday We'll Know" - Mandy Moore, Jon Foreman
4. "Dancing in The Moonlight" - 2001 Remix Toploader
5. "Learning To Breathe" - Switchfoot
6. "Only Hope" - Mandy Moore
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
14. "Friday On My Mind" - Noogie
15. "Empty Spaces" - Fuel
16. "Only Hope" - Switchfoot

Complete Listing of Music in the Movie^[10]

1. Cannonball — written by Kim Deal, performed by The Breeders
2. So What Does It All Mean? - written by Shane West, performed by West, Gould and Fitzgerald
3. Empty Spaces — written by Carl William Bell, performed by Fuel
4. Lighthouse — written by Jeral Vince Gray and Percy E. Gray Jr., performed by Mandy Moore
5. Friday on My Mind — written by Harry Vanda and George Young, performed by Noogie
6. Anything You Want — written by Jeffrey Cardoni and Patrick Houlihan, performed by Skycopter 9
7. Numb In Both Lips — written by Austin Reynolds, Jim Sumner and Dave Jay, performed by Soul Hooligan
8. Tapwater — written by Rob Basile, Brett Kane, Levon Sultanian, Jason Radford and Christian Hernandez, performed by Onesidezero
9. If You Believe — written by Guy Roche and Shelly Peiken, performed by Rachael Lampa
10. No Mercy — written by David Foster, Brian J. Grillo, Michael Hateley and Derek O'Brien, performed by Extra Fancy
11. No One — written by Terry P. Baisamo, Stephen D. Hayes, Jeremy D. Marshall, Samuel Alan McCandless and Ronald Ward, Jr., performed by Cold
12. Enough — written and performed by Matthew Hager
13. Mother We Just Can't Get Enough — written by Gregg Alexander, performed by the New Radicals
14. Only Hope — written by Jonathan Mark Forman, performed by Mandy Moore
15. Get Ur Freak On — written by Missy Elliott and Tim Mosley, performed by Missy Elliott
16. Flood — written by Daniel Paul Haseltine, Charles Daniel Lowell, Stephen Daniel Mason and Matthew Thomas Odmark, performed by Jars of Clay
17. Dancin' In the Moonlight — written by Sherman Kelly, performed by Toploader
18. Someday We'll Know — written by Gregg Alexander, Danielle A. Brisebois and Debra Holland, performed by Mandy Moore and Jonathan Foreman
19. Learning to Breathe — written by Jonathan Mark Foreman, performed by Switchfoot
20. All Mixed Up — written by Nicholas Lofton Hexum and Douglas Vincent Martinez, performed by 311
21. Dare You To Move — written by Jonathan Mark Foreman, performed by Switchfoot
22. You — written by Jonathan Mark Foreman, performed by Switchfoot
23. It's Gonna Be Love — written by Anthony Michael Bruno and Thomas V. Byrnes, performed by Mandy Moore
24. Only Hope — written by Jonathan Mark Foreman, performed by Switchfoot
25. Cry — written by J. Renald, performed by 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 movie 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 movie. 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."^[11]

A significant difference is that at the end of the novel, unlike the movie, 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."^[12] In the novel, Landon's father is a congressman, but in the film he is a cardiologist who helps Jamie with her illness. Due to his career, he had enough money to pay Jamie's home medical attention.

Smaller differences also exist, such as when Jamie gives Landon her mother's book in the movie, she says "Don't worry, it's not a Bible". In the novel Jamie does give him her mother's Bible with her favorite passages underlined. In the novel, Landon joins the school play after he is asked by Jamie to do so; in the movie he is forced to be in the play.

References

External links

• Official site
• A Walk to Remember at the Internet Movie Database
• A Walk to Remember at Allmovie
• A Walk to Remember at Rotten Tomatoes
• The A Walk To Remember Fanlisting
• http://awalk-to-remember.narod.ru "A Walk To Remember site"
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Hager