10 Things I Hate About You

Rating: 6/10 (3 October 2010)

Knowing the unfortunate fate of Australian actor Heath Ledger (1979-2008), it now feels oddly nostalgic to view his breakout success movie 10 Things I Hate About You, even though I hadn't even seen it until just now. The story is a loose adaptation of William Shakespeare's famous play Taming of the Shrew set in a present day American high school: a new guy named Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) arrives in the school and instantly becomes attracted to a pretty girl named Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). Much to his chagrin, Bianca's overprotective father won't allow her to date any guy unless her hostile big sister Kat (Julia Stiles) also dates somebody. Together with his preppy friend Michael (David Krumholtz), Cameron devises a plan to get a handsome bad boy Patrick (Ledger) to persuade the smart and independent Kat into going out with him, so that Bianca would become available as well. However, Cameron is not the only guy after Bianca – a vain male model Joey (Andrew Keegan) is also keen on winning her heart.
Even though high school comedies are a cliché-heavy type of cinema and 10 Things doesn't exactly strive to reform the genre, it manages to feel pretty fresh considering its old building blocks (referring to high school movie conventions, not Shakespeare's writing). The colourful fashion and brightly lit locations, such as the castle-like Stadium High School, bring pleasant echoes from the 1990s, a decade I remember fondly. The obligatory scene of showing the new guy around and pointing out the rivaling social cliques is pretty amusing too, even more so than in average school movies. One notable big scene involving Ledger performing "Can't Take My Eyes off You" while fleeing security officers also belongs among the highlights of the tale.
Some energetic performances by the young cast help to maintain interest in the criss-crossing romances: I have always liked Julia Stiles' appearance that is somehow both strong and timid at the same time and she fits in the role of the sarcastic indie girl effortlessly. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Heath Ledger aren't given highly memorable roles, but they do what they can alright. This is why David Krumholtz frequently gets to steal the show as Cameron's talkative but socially awkward friend Michael, not to even mention Allison Janney's small role as Ms. Perky, the school's aptly-named guidance counselor and writer of erotic fiction.
To recap, the story is not highly imaginative and the ending is pretty cheesy, but many individual scenes earlier in the movie are fairly entertaining. A very obvious comparison can be made to another Shakespeare-in-school movie She's the Man (2006) starring Amanda Bynes: both films succeed decently in what they do, even if they are nothing groundbreaking. Gah, why am I being so apologetic about liking the movie? In the end, I think it is alright and recommend it to fans of its kind.