A Walk to Remember

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A Walk to Remember
Image:A Walk To Remember Poster.jpg
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
Running time 102 mins
Country USA
Language English
Budget $1,900,000 (estimated)
Official website
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

A Walk to Remember is a 2002 film set in the mid-1990s Beaufort, North Carolina, based on the 1998 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.

Contents

[edit] Plot

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

When a prank on a fellow high-school student goes wrong, Landon Carter (Shane West) is threatened with expulsion. His punishment is mandatory participation in various after-school activities, such as tutoring disadvantaged children and acting in the drama club's Spring play. At these functions he is forced to interact with Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore), a girl he has known for many years but with whom he rarely interacted. 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, "That's not a problem", thinking she was the last person with whom he would ever fall in love. Landon and Jamie begin practicing together at her house after school. One day while in school, Jamie asks Landon if they were still on for practice that afternoon to which he replies, "In your dreams", because he was with his friends. When Landon goes to her house for practice, 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, who is wearing her costume, astounds Landon with her beauty. Landon kisses Jamie during the play, which was not in the play's script, and the two pursue a relationship afterwards. He takes her out to dinner and helps her with her wish list, like being in two places at once and getting a tattoo (it's a temporary in the movie).

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."

[edit] Background/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, "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 One Tree Hill 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.[citation needed] The total shooting time was only 39 days, despite the fact that Mandy Moore could only work 10 hours a day because she was a minor.[citation needed]

[edit] Cast

[edit] Reception/Reviews

The film was generally met with negative reviews by critics. Entertainment Weekly retitled the movie "A Walk to Forget",[2] and the average rating of 92 professional reviews as compiled by Rotten Tomatoes is 4.1 out of 10.[3] 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".[4] Roger Ebert also praised Moore for her "quietly convincing" acting performance.[5] Even though not a critical success, it was a modest box-office hit, earning $41 million in the United States alone,[6] and a sleeper hit in Asia. The total revenue generated worldwide was $47,494,916.

Year Ceremony Category Result
2002 MTV Movie Awards Breakthrough Female Performance won
2002 Teen Choice Awards Film - Choice Breakout Performance, Actress won
2002 Teen Choice Awards Film - Choice Chemistry (Moore/West) won
2002 Teen Choice Awards Film - Choice Actress, Drama/Action Adventure nominated (lost to Natalie Portman)

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.

[edit] Soundtrack

The movie's soundtrack features five songs by Mandy Moore and others by Christian music/alternative acts Jars of Clay, 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.[7] 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

[edit] 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."[8]

A significant difference is that at the end of the novel, unlike the movie, it is ambiguous whether Jamie died. 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."[9]

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.

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • In the book, Landon signs up to run for class president. One of the two people that also signed up was named John Foreman. In the movie, Jonathan Foreman sings most of the songs with his band, Switchfoot. However, John Foreman is mentioned in the novel as well.
  • 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.
  • Shane West loved the car that he had in the movie so much that he bought it when production had finished for only $5,000.
  • 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 the movie, Shane West's character, Landon, gets into medical school. Shane West went on to play Doctor Ray Barnett in NBC medical drama ER.
  • Darryl 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.[10]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sparks, Nicholas (2000). Background information on A Walk to Remember (from a speech given in Berlin, Germany for Heyne Verlag). Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  2. ^ Kepnes, Caroline (July 12, 2002). Reviews - A Walk to Remember. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  3. ^ Rotten Tomatoes - A Walk to Remember. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  4. ^ Overstreet, Jeffrey (January 23, 2002), A Walk to Remember, Christianity Today, <http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/walktoremember.html>
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (January 25, 2002). A Walk to Remember. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  6. ^ A Walk to Remember at Hollywood.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  7. ^ Switchfoot Featured in A Walk To Remember (January 21, 2002). Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  8. ^ Sparks, Nicholas. Nicholas Sparks on the Movie Adaptation of A Walk to Remember. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  9. ^ Sparks, Nicholas. FAQ on A Walk to Remember - Did Jamie Die?. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
  10. ^ Shankman, Adam. Interview with Adam Shankman, Director of "A Walk to Remember" by Rebecca Murray and Fred Topel. Retrieved on 2007-08-27.

[edit] External links

de:Nur mit Dir – A Walk to Remember es:A Walk to Remember fr:Le Temps d'un automne id:A Walk to Remember it:I passi dell'amore he:סיפור אהבה בלתי נשכח nl:A Walk to Remember ja:ウォーク・トゥ・リメンバー pl:Szkoła uczuć pt:A Walk to Remember ru:Спеши любить sk:Nezabudnuteľná cesta sv:A Walk to Remember uk:Пам'ятна прогулянка

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