How Do I Loath Thee... (10 Things I Hate About You (DVD))

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	10 Things I Hate About You (DVD)
Date:	28/10/02 (803 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Light and forthy but neatly avoids the inclusion of 'dumb' in there as well

Disadvantages: Mental floss, teen flick if you hate them

I must be sickening for something, firstly because I actually taped this the other night when it was on TV and secondly because I watched it AND enjoyed it earlier today. To clarify, I usually abhore teen movies. I hate the way they trot out the same 25 year old plastic people, shove them in a California high school and loosely hang the plot of another, better movie around the script of a far worse one. The most recent trend seems to be to take a Shakespearean play and dumb it down to the glitzy California high school scene and that's what you get with 10 Things I Hate About You - this time, The Taming Of The Shrew gets the treatment.

Umm, it's actually pretty good though.

Maybe it's because I've never read The Taming Of The Shrew, nor seen the play that made this somewhat more pallateable than the likes of Cruel Intentions(horrible dumbing down of Dangerous Liaisons) or She's All That(horrible dumbing down of the horribly dumb already Pygmalion which has already resulted in too-many-to-count horribly dumb movies) or to come up to date, Swimfan(which takes Fatal Attraction and makes it more boring than you could possibly imagine). Maybe it's because it pushes aside the cant act/won't act usual suspects (no Sarah Michelle Gellar? Surely not!) and replaces them with people who do actually have some charm and do actually fit the parts they are cast for as opposed to adding a known name to a movie poster. Maybe it's just because it's pissing down with rain, blowing a gale and it's a Sunday. Either way, it's the first teen movie I've enjoyed for a long time.

The setting is, you guessed it, a Californian high school and it's all glitzy and glossy once more. Doesn't matter this time, because there's actually a plot to speak of and some truly funny moments and some reasonable performances. Anyhoo, Kat(Julia Stiles) and Bianca(Larisa Oleynik) are two sisters at the school, but sharing the
same genetic parents is about as similiar to each other as they get. Bianca is glam, shallow and popular whilst Kat is socially inept...no that's not strong enough, Kat revels in being as bitchy and unfriendly as possible which makes things rather difficult for Bianca when her father makes a new house rule...

The girls' father doesn't want to lose his girls, he lost his wife and he doesn't want to lose them, consequently he is over-protective to the point of obsession. The new rule is that Bianca can date ONLY if Kat is dating as well and the likelihood of that happening with her outward personality lies somewhere between zilch and zero. When Bianca finds herself the object of desire of two boys, Joey the cool college player who sees a challenge and kind, caring but shy Cameron there's an obvious problem. To cut some convolutions short, Cameron(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Joey end up in a reluctant partnership, with Joey paying the school wild child Patrick(Heath Ledger) $100 a date to tame the shrew - i.e. Kat. Unfortunately, Patrick finds the ice maiden isn't quite as icy as she pretends to be and falls for her and vice-versa...

Umm, that's the basic plot if it made any kind of sense, if you've read/seen The Taming Of The Shrew then I'm assuming it's somewhat similar in at least its general essence. The entire movie isn't afraid to slip in elements of it's Shakespearean roots anyway, the character names are apparently modern updates to those in the play (Petruccio becomes Patrick for example), their surnames are things like Stratford and Verona and Shakespearean quotes are slipped into the script without feeling shoehorned in there. It's certainly no work of genius but it was good to see it pay at least a little homage to its source rather than just cannibalising it's essence.

What makes this movie though are three things - the quality of the cast and performances, a reasonably intell
igent script and some humour which actually works for a change and doesn't feel like it's aimed solely at 14 year olds. The performance of Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger really stand out as being exceptional for this genre of movie. There is an undeniable chemistry between the two and a maturity of performance I was both unprepared for an pleasantly surprised by. The second romantic coupling of Larisa Oleynik and her beau Joseph Gordon-Levitt is more along the lines of what you would expect from the genre, frothy and without any real chemistry, but watchable in a 'cute' kind of way. The rest of the cast are pretty generic but there's nothing you'd find yourself rolling your eyes at - again, something of a surprise.

The humourous elements are something I was impressed by as well. Oh sure, they are somewhat hit and miss, the scenes with Bianca and Kat's father playing the fool are really over the top and quite dire as a result but Kat's biting sarcasm and her English teacher's caustic approach to teaching and ascerbic tongue makes him something of a scene stealer. There's nothing particularly 'clever' here as such, but the humour and script in general is certainly pitched above the usual level of a teen romcom and therefore offers something for an adult audience as well as for its main target audience of teenagers.

You may not choose to rent this for yourself out of choice but if you're channel hopping and it's on, or you have teenagers and they rent it then you'll not suffer too much if you happen to be in the room and you may even find something entertaining therein. There is a frothiness to the romantic elements and a lightness of tone throughout which makes it easy on the brain and the humour and likable characters makes it easy to watch and to enjoy on a non-intellectual level. If you like movies which make you think, then this is in no way going to be of interest, it's solely bubbl
egum for the eyes and mental floss. Be aware that, despite its lowish certification there is rather a lot of barely concealed sexual innuendo in here and a number of more adult themes explored so perhaps not entirely suitable for the audience its certification may suggest it may be passable for if you tend to shelter your little darlings from that s-e-x word.

Who would enjoy this? It's aimed at a teenage audience so that age range obviously and anyone else who can stomach this kind of frothiness which usually doesn't include me! Umm, it's also probably more appealing to girls more than guys because of its romantic themes although I wouldn't say it's specifically a chick flick either...I just can't see guys of any age going out of their way to rent it although I can't see them hating it either. I enjoyed it anyway and the rating reflects my opinion of this compared to teen movies in general - I certainly feel this is one of the more appealing ones.

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