How to Deal

This is a movie whose title promises to show teenage viewers how to cope with the messed-up, grown-up world they are entering, not how to make it perfect -- or even how to make sense of it. more

There's pleasure to be had in a film that suggests teen life can be hard without necessarily being tragic. more

Moore makes Halley's awakening organic and touching. In an age when most teenagers are up to their eyeballs in postmodern consumer glitz, her movies seem radical not just in their retro squareness but in their unfashionable embrace of faith over ironic flippancy. more

Janney's role is smaller than Moore's, but it's hardly insignificant. Moore has youth on her side, and youth is timelessly appealing. But Janney is the bigger, more memorable presence, and she's much more fun to watch. more

There's a surprising intelligence and gravity working beneath its bubbly surface, informed by an unusual degree of empathy for its adolescent audience and a rare willingness to confront the darker regions of youth experience. more

Isn't that good. But Moore is. more

The handful of comic moments will serve up a few good laughs. more

As Mom, Allison Janney easily dominates every scene she graces, as does Morning Zoo jock papa Peter Gallagher. more

Works up some genuine emotion offset by occasional humor and creates individuals of a certain degree of complexity, but the film is glazed over with an aura of artificiality. more

The pop diva goes down with the bubbles in this hopelessly shallow soap opera. more

Not another teen movie? *groan* I expected to see a slightly cheesy teen flick when I walked into the private screening of How to Deal. You know the type. There's always the popular girl who's a real witch, a choreographed dance scene at the prom, and the popular guy who falls for the quirky lead girl. Well this was NOT that movie. If I were to compare this film with any others I would say it had a little bit of Breakfast Club, For Keeps, and Sixteen Candles (classic 80's Molly Ringwald movies). How to Deal is an honest film with 3-dimensional characters and a solid story that holds your... more

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... more