Great teen flick!

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2006)

Being an advocate of the claim that you can find good movies in every film genre, it's always nice to see movies coming out to support my point! The genre of teen movies is considered by many as an easy target for criticism, which of course is not completely unjustified. Nevertheless, films belonging to that genre are not necessarily full of flaws. "10 things I hate about you" is such an example.
I have not read Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" so I cannot say if the script of "10 things I hate about you" is close to the Bard's original work, from which it was inspired. What I can say though, is that "10 things I hate about you" is a fresh, witty movie with sharp dialogs and a rather interesting set of characters.
The plot: What can you do when your high school love interest is not allowed to go on a date with you, unless her older sister first goes on a date herself? What about becoming an ally with your main rival in order to find a guy capable of dating the older sister?
Larisa Oleynik plays Bianca, the pretty, always in fashion but rather shallow, younger sister. Kat (Julia Stiles) is the older sister. She is the one that has to go on a date first, if her younger sister can go out too. The problem is that Kat is unpopular and "incapable of human interaction". Bianca immediately catches the attention of Cameron (Joseph-Gordon Levitt), the likable, smart (how else would he be able to learn French so quickly??), and shy, new boy on the block. Cameron with his friend (David Krumholtz, in a role that provides some good moments of laugh) will have to try and persuade the wild and scary Patrick (Heath Ledger), who may not be that wild and scary after all, to go out with Kat. Of course, there is the "bad" guy, played by Andrew Keegan, who will try to mess things up, just when everything seems to lead to a happy ending.
I especially liked the Kat-Patrick couple. Stiles and Ledger definitely have the required chemistry and are able to make us believe how their relationship gradually develops into genuine love.
Apart from the main characters, a big asset of the film is the supporting characters, like the English teacher (who makes a habit of throwing Kat out of his class, without any apparent reason) or the sex-obsessed counselor (who tries hard to find fitting words for her new novel...)
Overall, "10 things I hate about you" offers quite a number of moments of genuine laughter, without ever resorting to cheap or crude humor. It is a movie that you will enjoy, if you know what to expect.