A Walk to Remember (PG, 2002)

Teen Beat pin-ups Mandy Moore and Shane West star as high school seniors Jamie and Landon. Landon, the glamorous bad boy in Beaufort, spends most of his time with friends, partying and pumping up their own egos. After one of their pranks seriously injures a boy, Landon's sentence is to tutor a disadvantaged kid, sweep up, and star in the school play(!). Landon keeps running into Jamie, a plain, Bible-toting girl who always wears the same sweater and does not care what other people think about her. He asks her for help learning his lines. When he sees her for the first time on opening night, all dolled up to play a nightclub singer (apparently their play had no dress rehearsals), it turns out that she is very pretty. He finds himself drawn to her, and, through her, drawn to a better notion of his own potential.

I got more enjoyment out of the squeals of joy from the 9-14-year-olds in the audience than from anything on the screen in this syrupy re-tread of "Love Story" set in a Beaufort, North Carolina high school. There is nothing that anyone over the age of 15 hasn't seen a dozen times, including the plain girl who loosens her hair and turns out to be beautiful, the reunion with the estranged father, and that old favorite, movie star's disease, in which the actress becomes more beautiful as she gets sicker. The direction, cinematography, and performances are barely adequate, but the Beaufort setting is lovely and the movie manages a couple of affecting moments. But "A Walk to Remember" is a movie to forget.