DVDFile

There's something about teenage-y romantic comedies from the 1990s - set after the empowering romance output of the 'me' decade and the cell-phone/iPod revolution of the 2000s, this writer finds a certain solace in 90s kissy cinema. And romantic comedies based on famous works, like 10 Things I Hate About You (a riff on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew), are even more endearing, if perhaps more brittle than they should be.

The setup is simple - in Walter Stratford's (Larry Miller's) house, there are two daughters: Perky queen of the school Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) and Venus fly trap rebel Kat (Julia Stiles). Bianca has suitors knocking at her door at all hours of the day, but Walter makes a bizarre rule readily apparent - Bianca can only date if Kat does, as well. So the suitor with the most intense aims at Bianca's heart (Andrew Keegan) decides to hire Australian beefcake Patrick (Heath Ledger) to be his partner in crime in an attempt to woo the Stratford sisters.

Of course, all dramatic complication of Shakespeare's work has been ironed out to three or four plot points, but more often than not, thinness is an asset to a light romantic comedy: With teenage rom-coms, it's better to be more laugh-y than smooch-y. And 10 Things I Hate About You follows the long emotional pivot that Kat and Patrick undergo from initial loathing to eventual amore with capably lilting success - there's nothing even marginally provocative about the film, but for a one-note romantic comedy with distant, if notable Shakespearean leanings, one could do worse than 10 Things.

Even so, it will take a viewer with distinct nostalgia for rom-coms of the 1990s to enjoy 10 Things I Hate About You. Maybe it's the bittersweet act of watching Heath Ledger on screen (R.I.P....), but while this writer was happy to instigate a walk down cine-memory lane with 10 Things, I don't know that I could in good conscience call it a good film. Does it cross all the Ts and dot all the Is of the romantic comedy narrative paradigm? Pretty much. But there's a difference between charming rom-coms that one doesn't mind revisiting every once in a while and a bona fide classic, and while 10 Things I Hate About You may be a worthy representation of rom-coms of the time, it's definitely not the best.

Comments (0)

Leave a comment

Title
Comment	smaller | bigger
Name
Email
	Add Comment