Miss this and you miss out...

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2004)

As far as teen movies go this was delightfully surprising. A tale of two North Carolina teens it was both touching and inspiring.
The story is beautifully crafted and Mandy Moore's portrayal of Jamie Sullivan is enchanting enough to bring the character to life for any audience. Her shyness and lack of acting experience make her ever more believable as Jamie and a sweetness and innocense naturally shines through. Likewise, Shane west is no let down either. He is perfect as the bad boy in search of better things. Completely believable and at ease with this character his charm and charisma sail him through his role.
Concurrent to being a love story this movie also envoques more interesting topics - so far relatively untouched in teen movies. Having Jamie as the reverend's daughter is a wonderful twist and presents new problems for Landon (West).
All of this contributes to the very effective bitter-sweet ending of the movie and one is left both inspired and with feelings of hope as well as affection for the main characters.
This is by far one of my favourite teen movies and if you miss this one, you will most certainly miss out. 10/10