How to Deal

Halley Martin (Mandy Moore) is a high school student disillusioned with love. She rolls her eyes at her sister Ashley getting married. Her mother Lydia (Allison Janney) is unhappily divorced from her DJ father (Peter Gallagher) who is getting remarried. Her best friend Scarlett Smith (Alexandra Holden) is happily in love until her boyfriend Michael suddenly dies. She's reluctantly to love until Macon Forrester (Trent Ford) finally breaks down her defenses. Scarlett finds out that she's pregnant. Lydia starts dating Steve Beckwith (Dylan Baker).

This starts off as a pretty lame teen rom-com. When it takes an unexpected turn, the movie feels like it's ready to make a honest effort. It keeps trying but the lame teen rom-com continues to reappear. Trent Ford is not capable enough to be the lead. Mandy Moore needs a better partner who is deeper than some floppy hair. It's a struggle between a quirky indie and a more traditional teen movie. There is enough to make a passable movie. Allison Janney is a fun presence. The movie takes a few too many melodramatic turns. It doesn't all work but enough of it does.

Halley(Mandy Moore) just absolutely doesn't believe that true love exists. She is upset with her parent's divorce, annoyed with her best friend's Scarlett(Alexandra Holden) relationship and is also sick about hearing about her sister's Ashley(Mary Catherine Garrison) wedding. Halley just can't see how people can be devoted to each other until she meets Macon(Trent Ford) and the two of them become friends and eventually more. Now the big question is: Will Halley finally fall in love too or will her relationship turn out to be a big disappointment? I thought this was a great teen drama. It dealt with real problems that teenagers go through, people die, people get pregnant and people get broken hearts. Unlike most sleazy teen movies, this one is realistic and the audience will most likely connect and understand what the characters are going through. Mandy Moore does a great job potraying the sweet and innocent Halley and there were also very funny performances by Alison Janney who played Halley's mother and Nina Foch who plays the stoned grandmother. Handsome newcomer Trent Ford doesn't do a bad job either and cutie Alexandra Holden is great too. I would give How to Deal 7/10.

A little bit of laugh, a little bit of cry. It's an ok movie.

New Line has sold this movie short and filed it as a Romantic Comedy but I must stress it is not. It's a teen drama with some romance and humor. Think of it as a teen version of American Beauty. Though it's all rather light, How to Deal does have some seriousness and important parts.

Mandy Moore (marry me?) is Halley Martin, a teenage girl who refuses to believe that true love exists (like me). Her best pal does but is heartbroken when her boyfriend drops dead on the football field of a heart defect (err...like me). Halley's parents have split and found others, her sister is engaged to some guy and all they do is argue. It seems like the best way to deal with love is to avoid it.

All that changes when Halley meets Macon (stupid name) a geeky Star Wars nerd. He seems like a dweeb at first but his character grows on you, as he does Halley. He's played by Trent Ford and on the cover he's wearing a white vest and is marketed as a sexually neutral, non-threatening pretty boy (Orlando Bloom, Justin Timberlake etc) but that ain't him or his character at all and he never appears in a vest at any point in the movie. I expected to hate him just because of the cover but that ain't so. In the course of her steadily strengthening relationship with Macom (really, what a stupid name!) Halley learns how to deal with teen pregnancy, being a bridesmaid, her dope-smoking grandmother, car crashes, stepmoms, stepdads etc. Stuff that every kid learns. Real kids, not the kids that make love to pastries or live in mansions, which are the only 2 types of kids Hollywood thinks exist.

Taken from 2 separate novels by Sarah Dessen called 'Someone Like You' and 'That Summer' it's possible that How to Deal might have a sequel. And if it does its literary roots guarantee it will a better sequel than most.

I recommend How to Deal for anyone who is sick to death of endless American Pie clones or Harold and Kumar or Maid in Manhatten/Laws of Attraction/Two Weeks Notice/Sweet Home Alabama/blah blah blah. It's not a romantic comedy, not by a long shot. It's far more realistic than that and it doesn't insult your intelligence. Give it a go.

The DVD is in great-looking 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound. The extras are actually quite good for a change, one of them focusing on Young Adult Literature and it's definitely a good DVD for the price.

The bright primary colors in which the plot, dialog and characters of this movie are cast gives it away early on: this is a cross between a soap opera and a sitcom, made purely to entertain. As such, it's actually pretty good.

Mandy Moore is adorable. She seems to be learning how to act as she goes along, but isn't that how most of them did it? Give her a few more years and some better scripts to work with and she could be a major star.

The real problem is that for the movie's target audience of middle-class suburban white teenagers it's positively overflowing with groaners -- embarrassing "banter" between the kids, cartoonish characters (idiotic philandering husbands, evil boy-stealing girlfriends), and a preposterous storyline. My own teenage daughter and her friends thought How to Deal was, and I quote, "stupid." But for us middle-aged parents nostalgic for a time in their lives they've almost completely forgotten, it really isn't that bad. Give it a chance.