Review: 10 Things I Hate About You

Unconventionally Sweet

 

A modern day retelling of  The Taming of The Shrew, this movie is perhaps most famous for it’s breakout success in two relatively unknown actors of the age, Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. I might want to point out that I watched this movie long after The Dark Knight got released. So it obviously had an impact on my viewing of Ledger’s performance. Not anything too distracting. But I was pleasantly surprised by his performance. But more on that later.

 

10 Things..  is a move that can manage to bring a smile to your face even on your most dreadful days. Probably one of the reasons why the movie works is due to the subtlety in it’s humor. The humor is mostly underplayed. And the few moments when it does manage to bring out a gag you just can’t stop laughing. That said, the story is fairly generic if not for the Shakespearean reference. Cameron James (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is the new kid at Padua High School who falls for Bianca Stratford(Larisa Oleynik). But twists and turns abound as he finds out that Bianca can’t date as long as her sister Kat( Julia Stiles) doesn’t date. He devises an elaborate plan to get Kat hitched so that he can date Bianca. Enter Patrick Verona( Heath Ledger). What follows is a humorous and at times bittersweet love story that engages every pulse and tugs at your heartstrings. By the end I am fairly certain that even the most stoic ones will crack and show the emotion beneath the veneer.

 

The real reason why the movie works is the performances it evokes out of each of the characters. Julia Stiles flourishes in her character to bring a lot of shades to a character that is supposedly one dimensional at the outset. Larisa Oleynik is short and sweet in her portrayal of the sometimes selfish, sometimes confused younger sister. The two provide a fairly positive chemistry that is at once vibrant and refreshing. It also makes the tension and psychological connection between the sisters much more tangible and real. In this context, a word or two must be said about veteran actor Larry miller who plays the bumbling and overzealous father who is protective about his daughters. He manages to evoke quite a few laughs. He probably also gets the best lines. Joseph Gordon Levitt is a revelation in his portrayal of Cameron, an otherwise generic high hormone teenager who falls in love with the cute chick. He underplays his performance and thus brings about an added nuance to a character that could have otherwise been lost as just another character. David Krumholtz pleasantly surprises as Michael, the bumbling guide-mentor of Cameron.

 

But the man of the moment and the person to look out for in this movie is none other than the late Heath Ledger. To be honest, the only works of him that I had seen prior to The Dark Knight were the ones in Patriot and Lords of Dogtown. While those gave u a glimpse of the unconventional streak that has been his hallmark over a decade it is with this movie that I fully realized his potential to be one of the greatest and possibly one of the most gifted actors of his generation. His portrayal of Patrick Verona takes the cake with him displaying everything from perfect comic timing to the romantic teen heartthrob. Trust me, you will fall in love with this guy. He is a revelation in more ways than one. It’s just sad that there won’t be more such Patrick Veronas to look forward to. He plays his role to perfection and with a swagger that you’d normally attribute to senior or more seasoned actors. All in all a perfect 10 for Ledger.

 

10 things proves that teen comedy certainly doesn’t need to be generic and be played by the book as long as you have a good narrative and well rounded characters with solid performances to back it up.