Shakespeare adulteration

Rating: Null/10 (14 February 2000)

"10 Things I Hate About You," a modern updating of "The Taming of the Shrew," demonstrates what happens when filmmakers drain The Bard of his poetry and language and cater to modern moviegoing tastes - they reduce a classic work to yet another in a long line of lamebrained, dull teenagers-on-the-make tales featuring a contingent of adolescents who would never be caught dead reading Shakespeare.
In this version, set in contemporary Tacoma, Kate and Bianca have been converted into two squabbling high school sisters, the former a notorious harridan from whom all peers flee and the latter a virginal beauty whom all the boys covet but who is laboring under her father's edict that she not be able to date until her older sister does.
That Shakespeare's plot fails to translate to modern times goes without saying since the father's obsession lacks the kind of logic the original author provided. In the original's historical context, the cultural tradition dictating that the older daughter must marry before the younger one rings true as a motivation for the story's narrative underpinnings. Here, since the fathers seems mostly concerned with the - real or imagined - horrifying consequences of his daughter's dating, his decision to allow Bianca to date only if Kate does seems counterintuitive and counterproductive. It seems hardly sensible that his fears would be allayed by having TWO daughters out on the town with boyfriends.
All this could be forgiven if the filmmakers had provided a screenplay with even a smidgen of cleverness and humor. In fact, the first ten minutes hint at a reasonably astute satire of modern high school life, particularly in the character of a sex-obsessed female counselor who provides the only moments of amusement in the entire film. Since she us dropped almost immediately from the action, all we are left with is the spectacle of a group of shallow teenagers laboriously executing the mechanics of a once irresistable plot. Kate is nowhere near the terrifying shrew nor her pursuer the arrogant rogue they need to be to be comically effective. They come across as only slightly askew, but basically ordinary, adolescents who lack the charisma to make them even slightly interesting.
"10 Things" proves yet again that Shakespeare without Shakespeare results only in a bareboned plot devoid of wit and artistry.