Movie review- A Walk to Remember PDF

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Movie review assignment, we had to relate the film to the developmental stages of life learned about in class....

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A Walk to Remember directed by Adam Shankman tells the story of two unlikely lovers of a small town in North Carolina. Landon Carter and Jamie Sullivan, a girl his friends often ridicule, are thrown together when Landon plays a prank on a fellow student. His stunt leaves him having to do community service which includes playing the lead in his school's play, which Jamie is also staring in. Landon needs help running his lines and requests the help of Jamie to which she agrees on the condition that he will not fall in love with her. They begin spending a lot of time together, even form somewhat of a friendship, as Landon begins to learn new things about Jamie. But when Jamie approaches Landon at school, while surrounded by his friends, he brushes her off with a rude comment. In turn, Jamie refuses to help him any further with his lines. On the night of the play, while onstage, after Jamie sings a beautiful song, Landon is overcome by admiration for her and kisses her on stage, an unscripted kiss. From there he tries to coax Jamie into going on a date with him, which she rejects until Landon proves that he is not as ill-mannered as he was around his friends. Eventually, they fall in love but Jamie has a secret she has not shared with Landon, she has terminal cancer. When she finally discloses this unfortunate fact, he is upset at first but ensures her he will be there for her. In the time left of her life he helped her accomplish the things she wanted to on her life wish list. Sadly, Jamie passes but they both learned about the nature of love in their time together. Through Jamie, Landon was able to find his own truth and after Jamie passed he lived out his own dreams and went to college. One of the stages of development most evident in the film includes adolescence which ranges from about 10-12 years of age and ends around 18-22 years of age. This is a time of major physical changes as well as heightened maturity levels and discovery of identity. A Walk to Remember shows the later years of adolescence and the developmental strides accomplished by

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Landon. In the beginning of the film he has a pessimistic view of the world and a loose grasp on his own identity but after falling for Jamie, he finds himself. One of the key theories of adolescent development includes the stage identity versus identity confusion from Erik Erikson's eight stages of life development. In this stage adolescents are faced with the decision of who they are and where they are going in their life. Eriksonian researchers have been lead to believe that Erikson's theory of identity came with four statuses or stages of dealing with identity crisis which include identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium and identity achievement. In the beginning of A Walk to Remember Landon appears to be in the identity diffusion phase. He has not yet experienced his crisis and seems undecided but also uninterested in his future career and choices. He accomplishes identity achievement, undergoing a crisis and making a personal investment, through the help of Jamie. Their relationship helps him realize that he can be more and do more in his life. In the film Landon says "Jamie has faith in me. She makes me want to be different, better." (Great-Quotes, page 1). After her passing he continues on to college and even gets accepted into medical school as he tells Jamie's father in the last scene of the movie. In the last few lines Landon exclaims "Jamie saved my life. She taught me everything. About life, hope and the long journey ahead." (Great-Quotes.com, page 2). This example illustrates the fact that Jamie helped Landon accomplish the stage of identity achievement. Another stage of life witnessed in the film is the transition period between adolescents and full-fledged adulthood known as emerging adulthood. This occurs around 18-25 years of age where an individual further explores a career path, what lifestyle they wish to adopt and find their ideal identity. This stage appears evident only in the last few scenes of the film, especially when it shows 4 years after Jamie's death. A couple key features of emerging adulthood

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identified in the movie include, identity exploration and the age of possibilities. Key changes in identity investigation occur during this stage of life, often times involving love and work. One instance of a major decision of identity in the love category includes when Landon purposes to Jamie and they are married in the church her parents were married in, her number one wish on her list. Landon knows that Jamie is his true love and acts on that feeling with marriage. The age of possibility of emerging adulthood is a time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their lives. Emerging adulthood was a time for Landon to reinvent himself. He became more future oriented after his relationship with Jamie, attending college, and he was able to accept the loss of Jamie but hold onto her love. Which brings up the theory of Kübler-Ross' stages of dying. In the film, Jamie has terminal leukemia which eventually takes her life. When she tells Landon about the illness she has already known for two years so the audience does not witness the stage of denial and isolation. In this stage, the person denies that they are really dying which is a common reaction to terminal illness. The next stage, anger, is also not evident in the movie because she believed she did "not need a reason to be angry with God" because of her illness (Great-Quotes.com, page 3). Normally at this point the individual realizes denial is no longer an option and becomes full of anger, rage and envy for the cards they have been dealt. The third stage of dying, bargaining, involves a person believing they can somehow postpone death, often with a negotiation with God. The next stage, depression, is when an individual accepts the certainty of death and a level of depression and grief set in. This stage was also not portrayed in the film. The only stage that did appear in movie was the acceptance stage, because by the time Jamie had told Landon, she had already accepted death. In this final stage the ill person develops a sense of peace and an acceptance of his or her fate. When Jamie tells Landon of her sickness she tells him "You know, I

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was getting along with everything fine. I accepted it, and then you happened!" (GreatQuotes.com, page 2). Because of Landon she digressed a bit in her stages of death but by the end of her life, she had accepted it.

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Resource A Walk to Remember Quotes | [ Page 2 ] | 97 quotes by |. (n.d.). Retrieved October 03, 2017, from http://www.great-quotes.com/quotes/movie/A Walk to Remember/pg/2...