by MARK SLUTSKY

Young adults take note! Wholesome teen singing sensation Mandy Moore is hitting the screens with another starring vehicle, How to Deal. Moore devotees may recall her last movie, A Walk to Remember, which had the interesting distinction of being perhaps the corniest movie made in the last 50 years. How to Deal feels a bit more modern - as in, it acknowledges that it’s no longer 1957 - but it definitely has the feel of one of those ’60s Hayley- Mills-starring Disney movies, only with sex.

Before any of you pervs get a heart attack, let me assure you that there’s no explicit sex in this movie, but the filmmakers do acknowledge that the concept exists, even if it does have Serious Consequences. Moore plays a sensitive teenage girl whose friends and family are all being driven crazy by love and sex: her parents are getting divorced, her sister is getting married, and her best friend is nuts about this guy who knocks her up and dies. So Moore decides that love is definitely not for her. That is, until she meets this studly young guy who seems to be the adolescentgirl ideal of a non-threatening bad boy. This guy is played by an actor by the name of Trent Ford, which is funny when you consider that her last leading man went by the name of Shane West; both sound like cowboys or porn stars.

Many, many things then start to happen - pretty much every melodramatic plot development possible occurs in this movie, usually when things are getting slow. There’s the dude who dies on the football field, the pregnancy, the car crash, the wedding(s), the break-ups. None are particularly captivating, but at least they keep coming at ya. Oh, and for some more modern-seeming comic relief, there’s a pot-smoking grandma and a leg-humping dog (which studios must just issue at the canteen these days).

It’s hard to hate a movie this bland and perky. Moore’s pretty cute, and Peter Gallagher gets points for a funny-enough turn as Moore’s ageing rocker/radio host dad. But there’s no reason to see this unless you’re a 13-year-old girl.

HOW TO DEAL OPENS THIS FRIDAY, JULY 18

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