Movie criticism can be tough sometimes, especially when one is called upon to review something that one has no business even watching. As a man far closer to middle-age than the female target audience of How to Deal, I’m at a loss. I thought to write a gonzo-style piece of journalism, relying solely on my immediate while-watching scribbling, but my raw notes reveal only the words; ‘whimsical pizzicato strings,’ and ‘marshmallow peep.’
That said, even premature geriatrics will struggle to completely revile How to Deal, the charmingly light and sweet tale of a young girl’s quest to understand love. It stars Blandy… er… Mandy Moore as adorable Halley, a cynical, sassy, self-possessed teenager struggling to come to grips with her crazy world. Her mom is divorcing her kooky DJ dad (Peter Gallagher, looking young and acting stupid) who is dating an unnervingly prim helicopter traffic reporter. Meanwhile, her best friend thinks she’s found true love, and Halley herself is fending off the geeky, anti-establishment charms of Macon (Trent Ford – the British Tom Cruise – looking alternately hot and tragically ugly).
Every aspect of this movie is soufflé-light, and no problem is too heavy to not be solved by a little ‘cutting loose’ or a well-placed Flaming Lips ballad, but who’s asking? The target audience for such frippery is mostly too young to even be experiencing such love entanglements. Look at How to Deal as a sort of slick primer for the adolescent female set, and as such, it’s a decent page-turner. Macon is indeed quite charming as Halley’s nascent love interest, and most of the plot contrivances thrown in their path are interesting enough for the average viewer, and likely to make your 12-year-old niece go absolutely gaga.
Director Clare Kilner employs a sure and steady hand while doling out material agglomerated from two popular works of young adult fiction, but one shudders to think of the drought of stimulating entertainment that would be found if only one novel had been raided. Sadly, Kilner succumbs to one too many MTV-age devices, even deploying a nails-on-chalk-board dance video montage at the worst moment, the tail-end of the movie, when just a tiny ounce of restraint would save many viewers from bashing their heads into any available unyielding surface.
How to Deal will enthral pre-teen chippies with its wholesome, marshmallow-peep-sweet vacuous-ness, but if you don’t fall within its demographic, and you’re averse to movies that use quietly whimsical pizzicato strings to signify adult stupidity, you’re advised to think twice before you try to deal.
