Review: A Walk to Remember (2002)

Even though A Walk to Remember is supposedly based on "the best-selling novel" by Nicholas Sparks (which I'd never read or even heard of before seeing this movie), it manages to incorporate so many cliches from other dramas that it barely exists as a movie on its own. It almost plays like a couple of studio execs parked in a Starbucks and went over a checklist:

"So. Okay. We've got a bad boy who's really good inside, right?"

"Check."

"A hunky bad boy, right?"

"'Hunky.' Got it."

"And there's this good girl...kinda mousy, but cute...who shows the bad boy that he's really a much better person than he thought?"

"Check."

"Then there's her dad, who expressly forbids her to see the bad boy."

"Got that covered, too."

"And the bad boy's best friend...he can be a jive-talking black guy..."

"Even though everybody else in town is white as snow?"

"Sure! Why not?"

"Wasn't that character just parodied in Not Another Teen Movie?"

"C'mon...nobody saw that piece of crap."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"So. Okay. I think we've covered all the angles..."

"Hold it...you're forgetting something."

"What?"

"What about the character who comes down with Ali McGraw's Disease?"

"Um...come again?"

"Oh. Sorry. Went old school on you for a sec there. You might know it better as Leelee's Disease. Or maybe the Charlize Syndrome?"

"Oh, wait wait wait...you mean, where a character who seems perfectly healthy through most of the picture is revealed to have an life-threatening illness? Where the character actually becomes more attractive as the movie goes on till, obviously too beautiful to continue living, they die?"

"You got it. Is that the perfect touch or what?"

"Aces!"

The plot used to string these dusty cliches together with is nothing to swell with pride about, either. The bad boy in question, Landon (Shane West), gets busted by the cops when one of his buddies jumps on a dare from a tower into a not-nearly-deep-enough reservoir and cracks his noggin, only to be dragged to shore by Landon (see, he's not really bad, get it?) while the rest of the punk-ass onlookers, being true friends, split to leave Bad Boy and Drowning Lad to take the rap. Landon has to do community service; the buddy who conked his noggin winds up in the hospital, appears in one more brief scene and is promptly forgotten for the rest of the movie.

While doing various duties to serve his debt to society, Landon runs into Jamie (pop singer Mandy Moore--don't ask me to name even one of her songs, because I can't), a Plain Jane who wears the same funky sweater all the time...oh, and she's the daughter of the preacher (Peter Coyote) at Landon's family's church. And she sings in the choir because...um, she's Mandy Moore, really, so they had to work a couple of songs into the movie somehow...like when Landon is forced to play the lead in the school play as part of his punishment. (Hey, how come I wasn't "punished" like this when I was in high school?). And who is his costar in the play? Why, Jamie, of course. And Jamie wrote it, too! And since Jamie is played by Mandy Moore, it's not just a play--it's a musical!

Of course, this means Landon and Jamie have to rehearse and stuff, and thus a romance buds (did you SO not see this plot twist barreling at you like a cement truck with its brakes out?), much to the confusion of the aforementioned jive-talking best friend and punk-ass onlookers. Jamie's dad doesn't dig this development too much either, sensing that "thayt boway is trubble." I swear her dad really talks like that--it's like Peter Coyote developed his accent for this movie by watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, even though nobody else in town (including his character's own daughter) sounds remotely like that. At least you can spot him as Peter Coyote, though. That's more than can be said for Darryl Hannah, who is virtually unrecognizable as Landon's mom. (One member of the small group I saw A Walk to Remember with pointed out that, with her shoe-polish-black hair, she bore a striking resemblance to Phil Hartman's "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" character from Saturday Night Live--cruel, but true.)

A Walk to Remember does have its cute moments, like when Jamie tells Landon that one of her wishes is to be in two places at the same time, and he sort of makes that wish come true, or when he takes her on a nighttime picnic in the best-lit cemetery I've ever seen. And Shane West and Mandy Moore give straightforward, earnest performances, doing as much as they can with what little Karen Janszen's script gives them to work with. At least Mandy doesn't embarrass herself like other pop divas have recently. (Yes, Mariah and Brit-Brit, I'm talking about you. Now, sit down. You're blocking my light.)

Too bad their efforts are wasted: By the time the movie gets around to the revelation of the disease, the audience has long since ceased to care. And since the disease in question, leukemia, is very real and very serious, it would have been nice--and more interesting--if it had been depicted in even a somewhat realistic way. Hell, even "disease of the week" TV movies do a better job of portraying major illnesses than Janszen (who co-wrote The Matchmaker starring Janeane Garofalo, and co-wrote Free Willy 2 starring, um, Willy) and director Adam Shankman (who also inflicted The Wedding Planner on moviegoers) do. But that would have required somebody along the line--Sparks, Janszen, Shankman, anybody--to actually care enough about the characters to put some thought into them and the crises they face. And why do that when there are so many cliches to plunder? I mean, I'm no expert on diseases, leukemia or otherwise, but I'm pretty sure you don't become more radiant the sicker you get. No. Really. You don't.

It's a shame that a movie called A Walk to Remember is so entirely forgettable. But it is.