10 Things I Hate About You

Rating: 9/10 (31 March 2016)

Gil Junger set the gold standard for modern-day adaptations of William Shakespeare works with 10 Things I Hate About You. Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt round out Junger's high school version of The Taming of the Shrew. When popular sought after Bianca Stratford is forbidden from dating until her feminist, tradition despising sister Kat decides to date, she feels as though her life is over. Bringing to life the Bard's work for a new audience, Gil Junger graced us with a modern-day classic.
New student Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is instantly smitten by Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik) His student tour guide, Michael (David Krumholtz) quickly informs him that Bianca is off limits to all, as her strict father has forbidden her from dating until her older sister starts dating. Cameron believes finding a date for Bianca's sister Kat (Julia Stiles) sounds like an easy enough task until he meets her. Kat is introduced to the audience tearing up a prom advertisement lecturing the student body on the patriarchal origins of the prom tradition. Realizing his feat to be almost insurmountable, Cameron enlists the help of Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) the school bad-boy with a mysterious reputation to hopefully lure Kat with his mystique. Cameron also cons the school model, Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan) into convincing him that he will be the one that gets to take Bianca on a date after Kat falls for Patrick. Believing he will get a date with Bianca, Joey provides the monetary bribe to Patrick promised to him if he can successfully manage Kat to agree to a date. When Patrick begins to fall in love with Kat, however, the whole strategy might fall apart.
My favorite part of these Shakespeare adaptations are the allusion to the actual works of Shakespeare that are sprinkled into the adaptations. In 10 Things I Hate About You, some of these allusions include Kat actually being called a shrew by a classmate, Shakespeare being read in Kat's literature class, and their school being within a castle. These allusions act as great kisses to the original work, and provide a nice touch of enjoyment to members of the audience "in the know". 10 Things I Hate About You is made up of a predominately young cast that really bring their characters out of the Victorian Age and into the modern day quite nicely. The music in the film also goes a great length to making the story fun and relatable even to audiences who know little about the film's original inspiration. A well-done Shakespeare adaptation will be enjoyable for fans of the Bard's, as well as people who didn't even realize that the film was based on another; 10 Things I Hate About You accomplishes this feat, bringing Shakespeare to an audience who may otherwise have skipped him.