'The Taming of the Shrew' in a '90s high school

Rating: 9/10 (25 March 2019)

This film, loosely based on Shakespeare's 'The Taming of the Shrew' is set in a high school near Seattle. New student Cameron James is smitten by Bianca Stratford; there are two major problems though; she is keen on the wealthy Joey Donner, who also likes her, and her father has banned her and her older sister Kat from dating till they graduate high school. This latter rule is changed to state that Bianca can only date when her sister does... potentially a stricter rule as she appears to show only contempt for boys and they are all scared of her. Cameron tutors her hoping to get closer and when he learns of the rule he, and his friend Michael, plot to find a boyfriend for Kat. The candidate for this role is bad boy Patrick Verona; he will need some persuading though. Here things get complicated as he approaches Joey suggesting he pay Patrick to date Kat... inevitably things get a bit messy.
The way the film ends won't surprise too many people but how we get there is fun and provides plenty of laughs. The cast does a fine job; most notably Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles as Patrick and Kat respectively; they have a good chemistry that makes the potential relationship seem believable. Other notable performances come from Larisa Oleynik; as the pretty, and not as vacuous as she first seems, Bianca; Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cameron and Andrew Keegan as the vain Joey. If you are a fan of high school romances I expect you will enjoy this. It has many good characters; both the teens, their teachers and the Stratford sisters' father. While it doesn't reference its source material as much as 'The Easy A', for example, there are plenty of nods with references to other Shakespeare works in class and even the sisters' surname. Overall this is definitely one to watch if you are a fan of the genre.