10 Things I Hate About You | |
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The latest in the genre of Shakespeare in high school is 10 Things I Hate About You, an update of The Taming of the Shrew. As many of you already know, this is the story of two sisters, the fair Bianca and the shrewish Kat. Bianca will not be allowed to date by her overprotective father until Kat is dating as well. Cameron, the new boy in town, wants to date Bianca. He decides to hire Patrick to date Kat. But Cam doesn't have any money, so he convinces rich and dumb Joey to pay Patrick to date Kat, since Joey wants to date Bianca as well. Got all that? Good. One good thing about these movies based on Shakespeare's works (as pointed out originally by Diane Patterson) is that you know at the very least, the movie will have a decent plot (as long as they don't change anything). The dialogue and acting may be lacking, but the plot will be there. This movie doesn't deviate from that formula. Actually, the acting was not bad. Julia Stiles as Kat and Heath Ledger as Patrick were compelling. Stiles in particular did a good job of creating a multi-faceted, believable character when it could have easily been one dimensional. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who you probably know from 3rd Rock From the Sun, was also interesting as Cameron. The one missing link, I felt, was Larisa Oleynik as Bianca. The plot would have you believe that Bianca is so beautiful and desireable that men are falling all over themselves to date her. Oleynik is cute enough, but not gorgeous, and her acting skills weren't good enough to convince you otherwise. Her prom dress especially was neither stylish nor flattering. Throughout the film, I kept wondering why everyone was so excited about her. One thing I noticed about the film was that the extras looked like real teenagers. In the scenes at school, the kids milling around in the background had normal faces and bodies instead of looking like models and actors. There were teens of all shapes and sizes. The fact that I noticed this must mean that normally, that is not the case. There were a few throwaway gags that didn't really add anything to the movie for me. The guidance counselor moonlights as a romance novelist. The teacher is a comedian. The gym teacher gets shot in the butt with an arrow. (I saw this movie with Mary, and she wants me to tell you that was the funniest scene in the movie.) All of these small gags elicited a chuckle perhaps, but I could have just as easily done without them. The depressing thing for me about this film is the fact that I am officially old. The songs that were covered for the soundtrack are songs from my youth - "I Want You to Want Me" and "Cruel to Be Kind" are both featured. How depressing. This film takes its place for me, along with Varsity Blues, as an entertaining teen film that will be soon forgotten. I enjoyed it, and it was worth paying for a matinee, but I won't be thinking about it in days and weeks to come. One good thing is that I was inspired to go back and reread Taming of the Shrew to see how faithfully the movie ran to the book. I have to rate this one on a different scale - it just doesn't seem fair to judge this movie the same as something like Shakespeare in Love or Saving Private Ryan. On the teen movie scale, where a 1 is Hiding Out and a 10 is Say Anything, I give this one a 7. | |