OxfordPress.com

"How to Deal" is based on two books by Sarah Dessen, who writes in the same vein as Judy Bloom. That is, without waxing melodramatic, she takes teens and teen problems seriously.

And things are going seriously wrong for Halley Martin (Moore). Her parents have just gotten divorced, and Dad (Peter Gallagher), an aging deejay with a dubious sign-off (a howl), is already engaged to the station's ever-so-blonde traffic reporter.

Her mom, Lydia (Allison Janney), isn't exactly bitter, but her dating-service video -- made at a friend's insistence -- is a stream of vitriol about men who marry silicone-enhanced babes half their age. Halley's older sister (Mary Catherine Garrison), is engaged to a very nice, very proper guy whose parents moved up from Atlanta and still have an African-American maid serving dinner. And her best friend, Scarlett (Alexandra Holden) has found true love for the first time and is already having sex.

It's enough to make the smart and already disillusioned Halley swear off love stuff forever. But she forgot to tell cute-guy Macon (Trent Ford), who can be very persuasive in some very unusual ways.

A lot happens in "How to Deal" -- death, teen pregnancy, a car wreck, alcohol abuse, a really catty ex-girlfriend. But a lot of it is pretty funny, too. A sink full of every pregnancy test known to woman may sound flip, but here, it's an amusing and meaningful symbol of friendship.

Director Clare Kilner should've jettisoned the cutesy grandma-smokes-dope scenes, and it's too bad she felt Lydia had to have a man -- any man, including a Civil War re-enactor. But she truly gets the material and she truly gets its target audience -- and in a more challenging way than "The Lizzie Maguire Movie."

Janney and Gallagher -- both of whom get a lot of scripts, so their participation should be a clue -- are terrific; they're as convincingly loving as they are convincingly nuts. Ford is major adorable, with a rascally eye, a mop of unruly hair and a limber, long-legged charm. And Moore is, yes, quite good. She expertly negotiates the movie's tonal shifts, while still managing to look fetching in cut-offs and a tank top.