Description: Mandy Moore stars as Halley, a young hip high school student who believes that love will never happen to her and that her life is a mess. Her father is marrying a woman she can't stand, her mother is alone, her sister's wedding plans are taking over her life and her friends at school only care about cheerleading and football. All seems lost until she meets a boy who shows her what love is all about.
Amazon.com: Teen idol Mandy Moore (A Walk to Remember) learns how to deal with an awful lot--How to Deal crams divorce, teen pregnancy, a wedding, a car accident, and a pot-smoking grandmother into a single year in the life of Halley Martin (Moore). Halley's so resentful of her parents' divorce (and her father's impending remarriage) that she resolves not to fall in love--so of course a hunky guy named Macon (Trent Ford) decides that she's the girl for him and woos her with gentle persistence. Two things save all of this from being a teenage soap opera: First, a refreshingly realistic (though not explicit) and unjudgmental look at teenage sex; second, a sterling supporting cast, including Allison Janney (The West Wing), Peter Gallagher (sex, lies, and videotape), and Dylan Baker (Happiness), alongside pleasant young actors like Alexandra Holden (Sugar and Spice). --Bret Fetzer
It is an okay movie... but nothing to boast about. Typical teen movie. Not recommended for the whole family. It is about one teens struggle with love. She doesn't recommend it. In fact, she suggests that people just get a divorce before they get married to save them that last step.
Likeable I definately can connnect with Mandy Moore's character's feelings. She's believable. Allison Janney is really solid, as usual. All of the characters are important and well played. It's fun but I appreicated it more after I saw a time or two. It grew on me. It's not the first thing I pick up when I have a choice but I'm not willing to part with it either.
Finally, a GOOD teen movie... I love a good cheesy teen movie, and I was expecting How to Deal to be another one of those movies in the vein of Mean Girls or John Tucker Must Die. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. How to Deal is not your typical teen comedy and, in fact, is more drama than comedy. Mandy Moore plays a teenage girl who is dealing with her parents' divorce, her father's remarriage, her sister's engagement, and her own cynical views on true love. At the same time, a close friend dies and she finds out her best friend is pregnant. This is a movie rife with teen issues that rarely see the light of day, and it's handled in a clever and amusing way. The characters are thoroughly fleshed out, so there's no point where you're sitting around wondering about their motivations. And all these issues are covered from the sides of both the teenagers and the adults. How to Deal is not just another teen movie. It's a GOOD teen movie, which sadly is a rarity these days.
heart warming it's a striaght out all the way around great movie and heart warming
Dull.... Mandy Moore is just so cute. Look at cute Mandy Moore pout for the cameras. Look at cute Mandy vow never to fall in love...yada, yada, ho hum. In a world where divorce is so common place-this movie stretches to show teenage angst in such a loveless world...and fails. Totally predictable and really just a waste of film. If they eliminated the pot smoking grandmother-which should have been funnier than it was-this would have been better as a project for the Disney Channel.
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