Sometimes
life gets turned upside down. And maybe that's why it's so hard to believe that
anyone, especially 17 year-old Halley Martin (Mandy Moore), could actually
experience that thing called love.The people closest to Halley are in the midst of major upheavals in their love lives. Her mother, Lydia (Allison Janney), is embittered by her recently finalized divorce. Her sister, Ashley (Mary Catherine Garrison), is marrying a guy with whom she is constantly fighting. Her best friend, Scarlett (Alexandra Holden), can't keep her hands off her first serious boyfriend. Most distressingly for Halley, her father, Len (Peter Gallagher), who is a DJ at a local radio station, combats his midlife crisis with a stereotypically boyish elopement to the station's much younger traffic reporter.
So how's Halley supposed to deal? She isn't about to let herself succumb to the pipe dream of storybook romance, and Macon Forrester (Trent Ford) is the one guy who challenges her idea that love just complicates a perfectly good friendship. As Halley's life grows more and more complicated, she finds a friend in Macon, but when she feels herself falling for him, will Halley
move beyond her fears and disappointments to
experience real love?A humorous and poignant look at teen romance, How to Deal stars Mandy Moore (A Walk to Remember) as the independent and spirited Halley Martin. Alison Janney (American Beauty, NBC's The West Wing) plays Halley's mother Lydia and Peter Gallagher (Mr. Deeds, CBS' Cupid & Cate) plays her father Len. The ensemble cast also includes Trent Ford, Alexandra Holden, Dylan Baker, Nina Foch, Mackenzie Astin, Connie Ray, Mary Catherine Garrison and Sonja Smits.*
Over the last five years, teen queen Mandy Moore has become a household name. Not only does Mandy have a voice of an angel with top selling singles off her 1999 platinum selling album, "So Real" including the hit called "Candy." Mandy went on to release three follow-ups to "So Real" and is planning to release her fifth album entitled "Coverage" which contains some of Mandy's latest greatest favorites including "Have a Little Faith In Me," "Drop the Pilot," "Mona Lisa's and Mad Hatters" and Carly Simon's "Anticipation." She broke onto the acting scene back in 2001 with the Disney teen favorite "The Princess Diaries" playing a stuck-up cheerleader and last years small budget film that went on to be a box-office smash, "A Walk To Remember" where Mandy ditched her golden locks to go brunette and insist that she will not go blonde again.
Mandy's latest movie, 'How to Deal' goes to the core of teen love. It's about a
girl who's parents are going through a messy divorce, her sister is getting
married and her best friend is caught up in her own romance. How to Deal
is in theaters now but, that's not the end of Mandy's acting career. She still
has two more films
under her belt including "Saved" which is due out this fall. Mandy plays the
friend of girl (Jena Malone) in this controversial bound film in which Macaulay
Culkin also stars. Mandy's other film is titled "Try Seventeen" opposite Elijah
Wood and Franka Potente.All we have to say is that Mandy's career seems to be soaring and doesn't plan to come down any time soon. She's got a hot singing, acting and modeling career, she's an MTV VJ and she's deeply in love with her boyfriend -- hottie tennis player Andy Roddick *sigh*. She's got tons on her plate and she's not even old enough to legally toast to her success. Seems like Mandy's 'dealing' just fine.
- Courtney Justice, August 2003
courtney@fanvasion.com
*source: www.howtodealmovie.com