A walk to Remember

In Beaufort, North Carolina, popular and rebellious teenager Landon Carter and his friends have partaken in underage drinking on school grounds. They lure a new student, Clay Gephardt, to a factory in the hopes of "pranking" him, with the façade that this is an initiation task into their friendship group. However, Clay becomes seriously injured, which is brought to the attention of the school principal through law enforcement. In an effort to avoid law involvement, the school principal gives Landon the choice of being expelled from the school or completing several service projects which include weekend tutoring, janitorial duties, and participation in the school play. Choosing the latter, Landon is further acquainted with Jamie Sullivan, the local minister's daughter. He never befriended her due to the status quo at the high school, though he has known her most of his life.

Landon begins to struggle with the play and reluctantly seeks guidance from Jamie, who agrees to help him on the condition that he won't fall in love with her, but Landon dismisses it as a foolish idea. They begin practicing together at her house after school. A bond begins to form between the two until Jamie realizes that Landon wants to keep their friendship a secret from others, so she decides to distance herself from him.

On the opening night of the play, Jamie astounds Landon and the audience with her voice and beauty. When Jamie finishes singing towards the end, Landon kisses her just before the curtain closes. Afterwards, Jamie avoids Landon until his friends play a cruel prank on her. In opposition to his friends, he defends her and she eventually warms up to him again. Landon asks Jamie to go on a date, to which Jamie reveals that she's not allowed to date. Landon visits the church in order to ask her father for permission. Jamie's father is initially hesitant but agrees.

Shane West as Landon Carter

Mandy Moore as Jamie Sullivan

Peter Coyote as Reverend Sullivan

Daryl Hannah as Cynthia Carter

Lauren German as Belinda

Clayne Crawford as Dean

Paz de la Huerta as Tracie

Al Thompson as Eric

Jonathan Parks Jordan as Walker

David Lee Smith as Dr. Carter

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 film 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. Due to time constraints, the sub-plot showing how he overcame his struggles could not be included in the film. 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."

A significant difference is that at the end of the novel, unlike the film, it is ambiguous whether Jamie died or simply disappeared into the shadow world. 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.