Imagine if you could take a course on teenage films, that recently critically derided genre that seems to have become little more than a contest of who can make the cleverest double entendre or the grossest sight gag. Instead of starting way back in the beach musical era, we’ll use a closer albeit equally forgotten tradition the likes of which John Hughes was a master. Sixteen Candles, Better of Dead, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and so many more based their plots around common high school issues like prom, popularity and truancy. If you want to know where the turning point was, 10 Things I Hate About You might be the best place to start.
Hitting theaters four months before the film that started the franchise-that-won’t-die (American Pie), 10 Things was the perfect mix of the two. It had a very classic story borrowed from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew as well as the comedy that came from that story originally, however it also brought something new to the table: that theme of rampant sexuality which had recently been allowed to blossom into a publicly recognized part of youth culture (before it was acknowledged but mentioned in oddly hushed filmic tones). It has all the common themes of a teen movie and the necessary laughs to put in the top echelons of teen films.
New kid in school Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has all the problems you’d associate with a teenager in his position. He doesn’t really know anyone besides his school-assigned guide Michael (David Krumholtz) and the most beautiful girl in school, the virginal Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), seems taken with the self-absorbed teen model Joey (Andrew Keegan). But that’s not really the obstacle standing between Cameron and Biancal, that would be too “underdog wins the day” easy. Instead, Bianca’s father (a rather hilarious turn by Larry Miller) has forbidden her to date until her older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) does. At first it may seem nothing serious, but Kat has a bit of a reputation for being a hot-tempered shrew (what up, Shakespeare?). Cameron devises a plan to get the meanest, edgiest guy in school, Patrick (Heath Ledger), to change his ways and make Kat fall in love with him so Bianca will be free for romancing.
The script has a lot going for it and director Gil Junger did it justice – but he had help. Taking into account the modern reputations of both Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the late Heath Ledger, and Julia Stiles (whom, for my money, was pretty good in the Bourne series) and it’s not too hard to understand how such a young cast was able to rise to the occasion. Add in the talented and hilarious adult cast of Miller, Daryl Mitchell as the funny English teacher, and Allison Janney as the student counselor and aspiring sex novelist and the film seems to have a solid laugh in every scene.
Compared to the teen films which followed it, the sexual references of 10 Things I Hate About You seem diabolically subtle in comparison. Sex jokes seem to pass under the radar with little more than a cocked head from a character to indicate that anything was wrong at all with the words just spoken. The direction, writing and acting are all top-notch for the genre and it’s one of the few you can legitimately share with whole family and not squirm because of ostentatious displays of vulgarity.
Something I’ve always enjoyed about this film is how some of the scenes are staged. Gil Junger made an effort to keep some of the staging as it would appear in a stageplay and it serves the film quite well.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
It’s the film’s tenth anniversary and accordingly there’s a 10-year after retrospective with new footage featuring director Gil Junger and co-writers Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz. Ledger, Stiles, Krumholtz and Gordon-Levitt also appear in the piece but in clips recorded when the film was first made. For fans of the film, the 35 minutes might feel too short, but for casual viewers it keeps a brisk pace and never really seems to drag on. It’s definitely worth a look. With that said, it’s really the only extra on the disc besides a commentary (which has lots of overlap with what Junger says in the retrospective).
"10 Things I Hate About You" is on sale January 29, 2010 and is rated PG13. Comedy, Romance. Directed by Gil Junger. Written by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith. Starring Allison Janney, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Larry Miller, Julia Stiles, Larisa Oleynik, David Krumholtz, Andrew Keegan, Gabrielle Union, Daryl Mitchell.
