Fresh performances appeal in 'How to Deal'

By Connie Ogle
Knight Ridder Newspapers

HOW TO DEAL Rate PG-13 Cast: Mandy Moore, Allison Janney, Peter Gallagher, Trent Ford, Alexandra Holden Director: Clare Kilner Screenwriter: Neena Beber Producers: William Teitler, Erica Huggins A New Line Cinema release. Running time: 101 minutes. Sexual content, drug material, language, thematic elements.

Halley is played by pop singer-turned-actress Mandy Moore, so you know she WILL deal, in a mildly rebellious but never wholly ungenerous way. She never gets nasty but does get to yell occasionally at her understandably distracted mom (a rousingly funny Allison Janney) and snark at her soft-rock DJ dad (Peter Gallagher, poorly coiffed so we know he's something of a loser). That's more emoting than Moore got to do as the saintly doomed girl in "A Walk to Remember," and she's not half bad at it.

You might expect "How to Deal" to be a lightweight teen romance, but it's more ambitious than that, reflecting more than a touch of "A Member of the Wedding" and "My So-Called Life" by showing that teenagers don't exist solely in the vacuum of high school, that what their families and friends do affects them deeply. It takes Halley's dilemmas seriously, which is more than most teen films accomplish. And yet a strange schizophrenia assails the film. Far too many dramatic events happen for it to be a straight-up comedy, and yet Grandma (Nina Foch) exists solely to provide cheap laughs. "How to Deal" can't make up its mind what it is, which makes for a confusing experience.

The film's most likely audience — teenage girls — may clamor for more attention to what is advertised as the main storyline: Halley, in light of her parents' split, vows never to fall in love. But then the cute, floppy-haired Macon (Trent Ford, a poor woman's Josh Hartnett) — who is allegedly a sort of bad boy but displays all the menace of a tail-wagging puppy — starts showing up at her window at night. He wears bracelets made of leather and rope. How can she resist?

"How to Deal" is mostly honest in its portrayal of teen sexuality — it exists, whether we like it or not — but also offers up the troubling notion of teen pregnancy as romantic and magical. Such a dewy-eyed view seriously damages the film's credibility, which is too bad. We could use more "Say Anythings." "How to Deal" isn't quite up to that level, but at least it tries. As Halley could tell you, sometimes that's half the battle.