Title: 10 Things I Hate About You
Release Date: March 31, 1999
Director: Gil Junger
Production Company: Touchstone Pictures
Summary/Review:
This 1999 teen movie reinvents William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew as a romantic comedy set at Padua High School in Seattle. Obstetrician and single dad Walter Stratford has strict rules against his daughters dating in high school but modifies them so that his younger, sociable daughter, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) cannot date until his older, rebellious daughter, Kat (Julia Stiles) goes on a date first. He does this knowing that Kat wants no part of high school social conventions.
A new student at the school, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is smitten by Bianca and works out a plan with his nerdy new friend, Michael (David Krumholtz), to find someone willing to date Kat. Realizing that they need money to bribe a potential suitor, they call in the obnoxious BMOC, Joey (Andrew Keegan), who also has interest in Bianca. They decide the fearless meathead with a notorious bad boy reputation, Patrick (Heath Ledger), is the best man for the job.
I realize that it’s taken me two paragraphs just to describe the complex, and somewhat silly, machinations behind this movie’s plot. But once the pieces are set into motion, the movie really soars with some hilarious moments and quotable dialogue. Curiously, the movie starts with Cameron, Michael, & Bianca as the A plot and Kat and Patrick as the B plot, but part way through the movie these switch places, to the movie’s benefit. Probably the best part of the movie is how it allows the main characters to emerge as more complex than their originally established stereotypes (well, except Joey, who remains a vain bully).
This movie is screamingly Nineties, and yet, for the most part, doesn’t have the cringe factor of revisiting many things from that decade. The dad, Walter Stratford, and his creepy, controlling attitude toward his daughters is deeply uncomfortable, but at least that is called out in the movie. Prominent appearances by the bands Letters to Cleo and Save Ferris add some 90s charm, and the soundtrack holds up well, although apparently 90s kids partied to more music from the 70s than I remembered.
Rating: ****
Panorama of the Mountains 