Teen pop star Mandy Moore stars in the romantic comedy How to Deal. Directed by British filmmaker Clare Kilner, the script is based on two of author Sarah Dessen's popular teen novels: Someone Like You and That Summer. Halley (Moore) is a teenager trying to make sense of the faltering romantic relationships within her immediate social sphere. Her mother, Lydia (Allison Janney), can't seem get a date, while her father (Peter Gallagher) is getting remarried to a woman that nobody seems to like.
Halley's wedding-obsessed sister, Ashley (Mary Catherine Garrison), is engaged to Lewis (MacKenzie Astin), a guy that is completely wrong for her. Meanwhile, bad boy Macon Forrester (Trent Ford) won't leave Halley alone. Just when she decides to become cynical about love because of all the romantic disappointments around her, a troubled situation involving her best friend Scarlett (Alexandra Holden) changes her outlook. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
After a while the bad lighting, graceless editing, sluggish dialogue and self-conscious performances begin to seem like marks of authenticity, as if the movie had been made not just for and about teenagers, but by them.
Would probably hold a special place in my heart regardless, due to the fact that it portrays a Star Wars geek as actually desirable, but this is a good movie by any standard.
I guess this is a chick flick, but I enjoyed it. Poor Halley suffers through her parents getting divorced, her best friend getting pregnant, her grandmother moving in - all at the age of 17. Because of all these failed relationships, she decides no love affairs for her, but of course fate has another plan for her.
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