Movie released in 2002 by
Warner Brothers directed by
Adam Shankman from a screenplay by
Karen Janszen. The film stars
Shane
West as
Landon Carter and pop singer
Mandy Moore as
Jamie
Sullivan. The movie also features character actor
Peter Coyote
as the girl's father,
Reverend Sullivan and
Daryl Hannah as the
boy's mother.
Based on a book by Nicholas Sparks (inheritor of Robert James
Waller's legacy to publishing), A Walk to Remember tells the story
of Landon Carter, a handsome, popular high school student who is
forced to be nice to people and do extra-curricular activities as
punishment after he is involved in a prank gone wrong that puts another
student (albiet an unpopular one) in the hospital. One wonders at
a school system that thinks the proper punishment for endangering
a fellow student's life is to make the culprit star in the school
play and teach an dumb kid math.
Landon's punishment brings him into contact with Jamie Sullivan,
the daughter of the local preacher. Self-confident and secure in her
own geekiness and with nearly no fashion sense, Jamie tries to befriend
Landon, but is rebuffed. Because she is not crushed by this, Landon
is immediately smitten with her and changes from a shallow self-centered
punk with no regard for the feelings of others into a caring, thoughful
young man who only wants to help others in the course of what appears
to be a week long period. Maybe this punishment system is on to something.
Landon and Jamie fall for each other as they star in the spring play.
Landon convinces Jamie's father, the hard-nosed preacher, to break
his rule against the girl ever dating by asking him nicely,
showing what a tower of conviction this man is. They date, Landon is
sweet, helping Jamie to do things that are on her list of things she
wants to do before she dies (Foreshadowing alert! Foreshowding
Alert!)
The two are blissfully happy despite opposition from Landon's idiot friends,
who at one point Photoshop Jamie's head to a bikini model's body to
get at her. Amazingly, this nearly creates a fight between Landon and
one of his friends, instead of them being openly mocked by the rest
of the student body for really crappy use of a computer. But as with
any such romance between young lovers (see: Love Story, Romeo and
Juliet, Titanic, etc.), fate intervenes and Jamie reveals that
she is dying of leukemia.
Landon bravely struggles on, building her a telescope as a sign of
devotion, while she quitely wastes away. They are married and then
she dies off camera, with a touching little scene between her father
and Landon years later to cap off the movie.
If you are looking for a saccarine movie to watch, this is your film.
I saw it to start with in a room full of high school students, who told
me that I had to see this movie. I assured them afterward that
I didn't.