10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Directed by Gil Junger
Written by Karen McCullah, Kirsten Smith
Starring Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Larisa Oleynik
Release Date March 31st, 1999
Published March 5th, 2023
It is a genuine effort that I have to make to like 10 Things I Hate About You. It's, honestly, a chore. I want to love this movie. I know that I did love it when it was released in 1999. But, I was also a relatively young film critic with a serious crush on Julia Stiles and a desire to be Heath Ledger. To say my objectivity was compromised would be very fair. Watching it again as the classic for the March 6th, 2023, episode of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, the chore of trying to be someone who likes 10 Things I Hate About You really presented itself.
10 Things I Hate About You stars Julia Stiles as Kat Stratford. Kat is the 'Shrew' who must be 'Tamed' in the Shakespearean sense, the film is a loose adaptation of the Bard's Taming of the Shrew and the filmmakers really, really, want you to remember that. Awkward dialogue exchanges and obvious name conventions make the forced effort to underline Shakespeare thuddingly obvious if you aren't willing yourself to ignore the awkwardness.
Kat has developed a reputation for beating up the boys at her High School. She refuses to date anyone as she sees the High School boys as beneath her. The story of 10 Things I Hate About You kicks in when a pair of boys begin to vie for the affection of Kat's sister, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). When Bianca approaches her father for permission to date he decides that Bianca can date only when her sister decides to date. Knowing Kat, that may not happen until she leaves for college.
Armed with this information from Bianca, nice guy Cameron (Joseph Gordon Levitt) and High School bad boy Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan), launch a plan. They will pay someone to seduce Kat into dating. After After being turned down by a series of guys who put over Kat's reputation as a ballbuster of a most literal sort, the schemers settle on Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger), a student with a reputation of his own. It's rumored that Patrick has been to jail, he's spent time in a mental institution and, he ate an entire duck.
If anyone is crazy enough to try and date Kat Stratford, it's Patrick Verona. The plan works but, of course, Patrick falls for Kat and when Joey figures out that Cameron is more likely to get a date with Bianca than he is, the plan goes awry in the most obviously expected fashion. There truly is no mystery or even a shred of suspense to this plot. Kat is going to find out that Patrick was paid to date her and she's going to be hurt by that. How the movie resolves that plot is deeply unsatisfying despite a strong, tearful effort by a very game Julia Stiles.
Read the full length review at Geeks.Media
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