A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember is a 2002 film based on the 1998 romance novel 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. Pictures. The novel written by Nicholas Sparks is set in the 1950s while the film is set in present day.

When a prank on a fellow high-school student 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 tutoring disadvantaged children and performing in the drama club's spring musical. At these functions he is forced to interact with quiet, bookish Jamie Sullivan, (Mandy Moore) a girl he has known for many years but with whom he has rarely even spoken too. 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. She agrees to help him if he promises not to fall in love with her. Landon laughs off the strange remark, believing Jamie to be the last person with whom he would ever fall in love. After all, Landon has access to the prettiest and most popular girls in town; and between her shy demeanor and old-fashioned wardrobe, Jamie doesn't exactly fall into that category.

Landon and Jamie begin practicing together at her house after school. The two form a tentative friendship, and Landon learns that Jamie has a wish list of all the things she hopes to do in her life, such as getting a tattoo 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 "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 during the play, which was not in the script, and Landon tries to get close to Jamie, but she repeatedly rejects him. It is only after a mean joke played on Jamie by Landon's friends that Jamie agrees to get to know Landon, and the two pursue a relationship. He takes her out to dinner and dances with her, something he never did for anyone else. When he discovers that Jamie has a wish list, he sets out to help her accomplish them. One memorable date had Landon taking Jamie to the state line. He excitedly positions her on 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 once." Her face lights up with joy, as she realizes that Landon set out to make her impossible dreams come true.

Jamie finally tells Landon that she has terminal leukemia and has stopped responding to treatments. As Jamie is hospitalized, Landon fulfills 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. 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 to focus and become a better person. For example, he reveals he has finished college and been accepted to 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 says, "She did. It was you."

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]

• Shane West as Landon Carter
• Mandy Moore as Jamie 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

The film was generally met with negative reviews by critics. Entertainment Weekly retitled the movie "A Walk to Forget",^[3] and the average rating of 92 professional reviews as compiled by Rotten Tomatoes is 4.1 out of 10.^[4] However, A Walk to Remember found a warm reception in the Christian community due to the film's moral message; as one reviewer approvingly noted, "The main character is portrayed as a Christian without being psychopathic or holier-than-thou".^[5] Roger Ebert also praised Moore for her "quietly convincing" acting performance.^[6] Even though not a critical success, it was a modest box-office hit, earning $41,281,092 million in the United States alone,^[7] and a sleeper hit in Asia. The total revenue generated worldwide was $47,494,916.

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.

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

The movie's soundtrack features five songs by Mandy Moore and others by Christian music/alternative acts Switchfoot, Rachael Lampa and 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.^[8] When they were approached to do the film, the band were 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. I Dare You To Move - Switchfoot
2. Cry - Mandy Moore
3. Someday We'll Know - Mandy Moore, Jonathan 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

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."^[9]

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."^[10] In the novel, Landon's father is a congressman, but in the film he is a cardiologist who helps Jamie with her illness.

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. Also, although Jamie is described as having blue eyes and blond hair in the book, Mandy Moore has brown eyes and brown hair.

This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles. (June 2007)

• 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.^[11]

• Official site
• A Walk to Remember at IMDb
• A Walk to Remember at Rotten Tomatoes
• The A Walk To Remember Fanlisting