A Walk to Remember
Starring Shane West, Mandy Moore

Directed by Adam Shankman, PG

**3/4 out of 4 Stars

Released January 25, 2002

Running time: 100 minutes

**3/4

by Kevin Lang

Martin Farquhar Tupper wrote in 1842, "A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever." Shortly after beginning to read the best selling novel, "A Walk to Remember," by Nicholas Sparks, it soon became one of my closest companions. The novel transcended the amoral themes often present in stories today, by echoing values and virtues from a time when they actually meant something to a lot of people. The novel was beautifully written, and it didn't, for a single moment, fail to fully stand behind the principles that it was trying to convey through the experience of its central character, Landon Carter. The movie, directed by Adam Shankman and starring Shane West and teen pop star Mandy Moore, seemed to worry more about appealing to a modern teenage audience than it did about staying true to the novel on which it was supposedly based.

Director Shankman chose a present day setting for the time of the story, while the novel takes place at the end of 1958 and on into 1959. This was the first difference that I had noticed upon seeing the trailer for the film, and it obviously wasn't the last. As I settled into my supposedly comfortable seat at the local theater, the movie began, and it soon became obvious that Shankman had attempted to make a film aimed at the core of today's MTV audience, the same young people who worship singers like Moore and Christina Aguilera. If I hadn't read the novel, I wouldn't have had a problem with this. As a matter of fact, I enjoy their music too, but in its translation to the screen, the once rare, powerfully moving, gem of a story that celebrated the very essence of what it is to love and be alive, seemed to lose some of the luster that helped to set it apart from other recent stories.

I'm sure that Screenwriter Karen Janszen read the same story that I did by Nicholas Sparks, and her adaptation wasn't that bad. The movie tells the story of Landon Carter (Shane West), a seventeen year-old living in the town of Beaufort, North Carolina. All of Spark's stories that I have read have been set in North Carolina. He makes the location seem so appealing that if I ever consider moving, I think I might look into that part of the country. Thankfully, the movie was shot in North Carolina as well, and it didn't fail to capture some of the area's coastal splendor.

Landon was a senior at Beaufort High. He was popular, and he hung out with a group of friends that seemed to bring out the wild, "I could care less," side in him. His antics, which involved drinking on school property, and encouraging a less popular friend from school to jump from a tower into a not so deep lake, got him into trouble both at school and with the law. These were just two of several elements of Landon's behavior added by Janszen for the film version of the story. Part of his punishment included participating in extra activities at school, which came to include his school's annual play. He reluctantly accepted the lead, opposite none other than Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore), the unpopular classmate who eventually stole his heart. The rebellious streak added by screenwriter Janszen to the character of Landon early in the movie, was likely an attempt to help emphasize the character change that occured in him as the film progressed, not to mention an attempt by Janszen to put a modern spin on the story. In the novel, the character of Landon needed an easy class to fill his schedule, so he chose theater, and that's how he ended up doing the play opposite Jamie. The added character changes in the film failed in the sense that they made him less respectful. It may appeal to a young teen audience, but adults will fail to see the groundwork of good values that were already present in him in the novel before he came to befriend Jamie Sullivan.

Jamie was honest, kind, decent, and caring. In today's world it's not hard to see why she was the outcast. In the novel she was the kind of character that made you want to be a better person. In the movie Jamie doesn't have this same kind of impact, but for the most part her character followed the one in the novel closely. There were, however, omissions from the novel that would have added to her character, such as her volunteering at an orphanage. The volunteer work we see her doing in the movie was just her participating in some type of young astronomers club, which seemed to be an unnecessary attempt to emphasize that she was odd. It did not act to accentuate the giving, unselfish nature of her counterpart from the novel, although later Jamie's fondness for stargazing did play a rather significant role in the movie. However, it was a sub par substitute compared to the significance that the orphanage brought in the novel.

There were several other changes made for the film that acted to subtract from the story's overall impact. In the book, when Landon was hurting, he eventually accepted the healing power of religion. In the movie, it seemed that faith and religion were seen more as qualities that made Jamie strange, rather than the priceless god sent qualities that made her so unique in the novel. In the book, Jamie gave Landon the Bible that her mother had held onto during childbirth before she passed away. In the movie, Jamie gave Landon some type of poetry journal that was her mother's, which although it was a moving gesture, didn't carry the same weight of importance as the Bible, especially in the context of the story.

For most of the movie Landon was emotionally estranged from his father. The film attributed this partly to the fact that his parents were divorced, another attribute added to help "modernize" the story. In the novel, his father was a politician, and there estrangement was mainly due to the fact that his father spent a lot of time away from home in Washington D.C. on business. This was yet another instance of the movie distancing itself from the novel.

For a story that came across so powerfully as a novel, Adam Shankman's film adaptation of "A Walk to Remember" failed to capture the beauty of the book. Only a couple of changes from the book may have actually added something to the story, and these included Jamie's musical performance in the play, during which she sings her (Mandy Moore's) song "Only Hope." I also liked the addition of Landon's best friend, Eric, being black instead of white, which seemed to be implied, but not directly stated in the book. In the end, I expect that people who haven't read the novel will find the movie enjoyable despite the aforesaid shortcomings; but for a novel that successfully captured the truest essence of life and love in the manner that it did, the film did not compare.