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How to Deal Picture 10
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How to Deal Full Production Notes "A lesson in love for non-believers"
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 Chapter 3: The Way That Teenagers Experience Life"It used to be that movies would depict perfect families that would make you feel bad about your own family," says Allison Janney. "People can relate to the Martins and Warshers, because we all come from dysfunctional families whether we're aware of it or not. We're all trying to get through our lives, and find some joy, peace and love somewhere. These characters are also trying to find that. That's why I really relate to it."
The film deals with parent/child relationships in a similar truthful fashion. In the Martin family, Lydia favors Halley, while Ashley feels closer to her father Len. According to Janney, "Lydia has a closer relationship with Halley than with Ashley, because she sees a lot of herself in Halley."
Mary Catherine Garrison agrees, "Ashley has to deal with the fact that she's very different from her mother and Halley. She had a lot in common with her father, who no longer lives with them. Ashley doesn't feel appreciated for the ways that she is different, and a lot of what she's going through has to do with claiming who she is, and not apologizing for it or being ashamed of it."
Both Moore and Garrison developed a great rapport with their onscreen parents, Janney and Gallagher. "Allison is one of the greatest people," enthuses Mandy Moore. "She's wonderful to work with. She is the bar to reach. I feel so honored and privileged that I got the chance to work with her." Janney returns the compliment: "I'm so impressed with Mandy, who is brave and so lovely. I love acting with her; she jumps right in, and likes to improv before the scene starts. She's very game to all the challenges that movie acting has to offer."
The process of bringing How to Deal to the screen began several years ago, when producer William Teitler read the novels, Someone Like You and That Summer by Sarah Dessen, and was immediately struck by the way that he connected with the books' "emotional intensity and honest portrayal of family life." A parent of two daughters, Teitler was inspired to make a film that was as "emotionally true and as accurate to the way that teenagers experience life."
Teitler and his producing partner, Chris Van Allsburg, had a longstanding production deal with Interscope Communications before the company re-established itself as Radar Pictures. Teitler optioned both books through the deal at Interscope, aiming to develop the two into a single moving story. Teitler approached writer Neena Beber after seeing her two-character play, "Misreadings," featuring a razor-sharp, cynical high schooler and her teacher, and also taking into account her work on MTV's cult-hit "Daria."
"Her writing is so sharp and cynical, and yet human and funny at the same time," he comments. "She has the combination of great writing skills, a keen sense of comic irony that was required for the character Halley, and also a deep understanding of the teenage audience. Neena doesn't write down to them; she is able to get inside the mind of the teenage protagonist."
"It was an interesting challenge to take something that already existed," says Beber. "Sarah Dessen had already created a world that I had to enter into, rather than create. I was almost working as a translator at first."
Beber and Teitler started by making an extensive outline of everything they wanted to include from each novel. They knew that the endpoint would be the wedding of Ashley and Lewis and the birth of Scarlett's baby. The challenge was to find a way to connect the points over the story's nine-month period. During the course of the 3-4 years they spent developing the script, Beber and Teitler also added scenes that did not appear in either of the books such as the memorable Thanksgiving dinner scene where the Martin and Warsher families meet for the first time.
Teitler credits Beber with finding a way to make the new material fit the tone and feeling of the original. "Sarah Dessen found it odd and funny to read her characters saying things that seemed completely true to their personalities, and yet wasn't said in her books," says Teitler. "That's a great compliment for Neena."
Next Page: Different Generations of Women |
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