A Walk to Remember

A Remember
Directed by	Adam Shankman
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

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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, Christian, 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, obviously doubting that he could ever fall in love with her.

Landon and Jamie begin practicing together at her house after school. As they spend more time together, a friendship begins to develop. Landon discovers that Jamie’s wish list of everything she aspires to accomplish in life includes befriending someone she doesn't like, getting a tattoo, make a telescope so she can see a special comet that is coming and being in two places at once. 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 and replies, "In your dreams." His friends laugh and Landon's smirk falters as Jamie feels betrayed and embarrassed. That afternoon, Landon arrives at Jamie's house, hoping that Jamie will still agree to help him. But she refuses to talk to him, eventually she does, and asks him in a sarcastically sweet voice if she wants to 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 singing voice. Landon, clearly surprised and overcome with unexpected emotion, kisses her impulsively at the end of her key song, "Only Hope." At the play, Landon is approached by his father, who we later learn walked out on him and his mother when he was very young. When he turns to go, his dad calls after him not to walk away. "You taught me how," he says simply, and leaves.

In the following days, Landon tries to get close to Jamie, but she repeatedly rejects him. The breaking point comes when a few of Landon's so-called friends play a malicious joke on Jamie that she lets him in. (The prank consisted of using a computer to edit Jamie's face onto a photo that was almost pornographic and putting it out on fliers, which the group then handed out.) She is about to cry in the middle of the cafeteria when Landon comes to her aid. He punches out one of his now ex-friends and literally turns his back on the group to take Jamie home. "We're through!" calls Dean, the guy Landon punched. "That's great," he says.

In his car at her house, he asks her out to dinner, but she replies that she is not allowed to date. He goes to her father in the church and asks him for permission. When her father says no, Landon apologizes for the way he has treated Jamie in the past and asks for her father to have faith in him. The man begrudgingly agrees, and Landon takes her out to dinner. At the restaurant, we begin to see how far he is willing to go for her, in baby steps at first. She convinces him to dance with her.

Landon then sets out to help her accomplish a few things on her wish list. He takes her to the state line and positions her over it in just the right way. When Jamie asks him what he's doing he tells her, "You're in two places at once." Her face lights up with joy as she realizes that Landon found a way to make her impossible dream a reality. He gives her a temporary tattoo of a butterfly, and they walk along a boardwalk. Jamie asks Landon how he could have such amazing moments and not believe. She explains her faith to him eloquently and Landon is once again clearly overcome. "I might kiss you," he says in one of the most memorable lines of the film. And he does. He then tells her that he loves her, but she doesn't reply right away. When he prompts her, all she can say is "I told you not to fall in love with me..."

As their relationship grows, Jamie's father confronts her. He tells her that her behavior is "sinful." She argues that she is in love with him, and her father looks her straight in the eye. "Then be fair to him, Jamie. Before things get worse." The audience does not immediately understand.

The couple meets up at the cemetery where Jamie goes to stargaze and they spend the night waiting for Pluto to rise. Meanwhile Landon tells Jamie that he had a star named for her, she tells him that she loves him for the first time, and he finally realizes something that he has been trying to find out for a while: at the top of Jamie's wish-list is to marry in the church where her paren� ts were married.

One ev� ening, Jamie finally tells Landon that she has terminal [[leukemia]� ] and has stopped responding to treatments. Landon is initially upset over this, but Jamie says 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. She says that she was doing fine until they fell in love. Jamie starts to break down as she says to Landon, "I do not need a reason to be angry with God," and runs away.

Landon goes to his father's house and asks him to help Jamie. His father hesitates a bit, as leukemia is not exactly his specialty, and says that he needs to examine Jamie and know her medical history before he could do anything. Landon responds by leaving, angry at his father for not being able to help. In the car on the way home, he tears up as the situation sinks in.

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 hadn't understood. Landon leaves dozens of flowers on Jamie's doorstep and asks her father to tell her that he's "not going anywhere." The pair makes up soon after.

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 by her and says, "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 for the first time since her mother's death, her father breaks down in 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, and 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 over Jamie's situation and years of hurt about his parent's divorce on his shoulders, 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 special comet that is coming. Her father, who at first didn't approve of him (but later changes his mind after seeing Landon watch over Jamie), helps out, as does Dean. Belinda, Landon's ex-girlfriend who originally proposed the prank, also apologizes. After Jamie sees the comet through the telescope, Landon proposes marriage and Jamie accepts. With the wedding, Landon has completed everything on Jamie’s wish-list, and then she died months after their wedding.

Four years later, Landon visits Jamie's father and tells him he has finished college and has been accepted into medical school. He then gives Jamie's father a book that had been her mother's. Jamie had given it to him, and now he was giving it back. 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 that Jamie did see a miracle. It was him. In the end, Landon remarks that Jamie not only saved his life -- she taught him everything about life, hope and the long journey ahead. He ends his monologue by echoing what Jamie had said about God's love earlier in the film. "But her love is like the wind. I can't see it, but I 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
• Marjorie Delsoin as Extra!

Box office

The film opened at #3 at the U.S. Box office raking in $12,177,488 USD in its opening weekend, behind Snow Dogs and Black Hawk Down.

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.^{[citation needed]}

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. In the novel Jamie dosn't drive but on the movie she does. In the novel Jamie wears pants when she is working around the house but on the movie she doesn't. In the novel both Landon and Jamie dance well but in the movie only Jamie dances well and Landon, who is a bad dancer, later learns from his mother for Jamie.

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