A Walk to Remember (film)

A Walk to Remember is a 2002 film set in mid-1990s Beaufort, North Carolina, based on the 1998 novel by Nicholas Sparks. The movie stars pop singer Mandy Moore and Once and Again actor Shane West. The movie was directed by Adam Shankman and produced by Denise DiNovi and Hunt Lowry.

Plot

Tagline: Love is like the wind. You cannot see it but you can feel it.

The movie revolves around the lives of two very different Beaufort High School teenagers: the daughter of a minister, Jamie Sullivan (Moore) and a jaded, aimless high school senior, Landon Carter (West).

When a prank on a fellow high-school student goes wrong, Landon is punished with mandatory participation in various after-school activities, such as tutoring to younger disadvantaged children at their sister school and acting in the drama club's final production, the spring play. At these functions he is forced to interact with Jamie Sullivan, but does not befriend her immediately. When Landon realizes that he needs help learning his lines for the play, he asks Jamie for help. She agrees to help him if he promises not to fall in love with her, to which he responds by saying, "That's not a problem." At school, Landon continues to look down upon Jamie and mock her along with his group of friends.

Eventually, Landon is intrigued by Jamie's positive attitude, forgiving nature, and overwhelming faith. Landon finds himself falling in love with Jamie despite his promise that he wouldn't. The two begin dating, which threatens Landon's reputation and friendships with other students. He defends Jamie on various occasions and decides to end his connections with his previous clique; he even goes so far as to strike a former friend for publicly humiliating her.

The public humiliation started when some of Landon's former clique took a picture of a model, put Jamie's face on it, then heavily used Photoshop 5.5 on the image. They put the caption "Virgin Mary?" on the right-bottom corner. Then they started mass-distributing the image.

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. He tells Jamie's father that he is sorry he could not complete all of Jamie's wishes as he couldn't show her "the miracle" she wanted to see before dying. Her father then says, "She did. It was you."

Cast

• Mandy Moore - Jamie Sullivan
• Shane West - Landon Carter
• Peter Coyote - Reverend Sullivan
• Daryl Hannah - Cynthia Carter
• Clayne Crawford - Dean
• Lauren German - Belinda
• Al Thompson - Eric
• Paz de la Huerta - Tracie

Reception

The film was generally met with negative reviews by critics. Some praised Moore for her "quietly convincing" acting performance. ^[1] Even though not a critical success, it was a modest box-office hit, earning $41 million in the United States alone, and a sleeper hit in Asia most especially the Philippines.

Moore beat out fellow popstar 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.

Soundtrack

The movie's soundtrack features five songs by Mandy Moore and others by CCM/alternative acts New Radicals, Switchfoot, Rachael Lampa and more. The lead song "Cry" was originally released on Moore's sophomore studio album Mandy Moore. The soundtrack also includes two versions of Switchfoot's song Only Hope including the version Moore sang in the movie.

Trivia

• The movie was shot in North Carolina; many of the sets were from the TV show "Dawson's Creek" (1998)—particularly the school, hospital and Landon's home.
• The inspiration for Jamie Sullivan's character and some of the events in the book/movie are from Nicholas Sparks' sister, Danielle Sparks Lewis (whom the book and movie are dedicated to).
• The pictures of Jamie on the mantle of the fireplace in the Sullivan house are real pictures of Mandy Moore when she was a little girl.
• The novel is set in 1958.
• Shane West loved the car that he had in the movie so much, that he bought the car for only $5,000.
• This movie was filmed in only 39 days, despite the fact that they only had Mandy Moore for 10 hours a day because she was a minor.
• When Jamie gives Landon her mother's book she says "Don't worry, it's not a Bible". In the novel by Nicholas Sparks, Jamie does give him her mother's Bible which has her favorite passages underlined.
• Jessica Simpson was considered for the role of Jamie Sullivan.
• Filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina at the same time as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)
• It was originally intended to be a PG-13 movie, which included a naked version of the picture that featured Jamie's head and a model's body. The copy that is actually shown is the only one that was edited to show her with clothes. All the copies that the characters in the cafeteria have are the naked versions.
• Much of the movie's soundtrack includes music from the band Switchfoot, who at the time were really only recognized in their native San Diego, and in Contemporary Christian music circles. Mandy Moore was a huge fan of the band, and had a great deal of influence in their participation on the film. When they were approached to do the film however, the guys really had no idea who Moore was, and weren't familiar with her music (despite her status as a pop star with several hits on the charts).
• Director Cameo: [Adam Shankman] The nurse pushing Jamie out of the hospital room when she is discharged from the hospital for private home care.
• In Entourage, fictional movie star Vincent Chase met and dated Mandy Moore on the set of A Walk to Remember.
• The movie's storyline is similar to that of the 2001 Japanese novel Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World (Japanese title: Sekai no Chūshin de, Ai wo Sakebu, 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ) written by Kyoichi Katayama. In it, a boy and girl fall in love with each other, then the girl contracts leukemia, eventually dying. It has been made into a manga and and two movies, one Japanese, one Korean. The novel and manga were distributed in the United States under the title "Socrates in Love".

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