Originally written February 17, 2009

10 Things I Hate About You is a romantic comedy, and probably one of my favorites of all time. It’s actually a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, but set in modern times in a high school environment.

In the movie, Cameron (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) transfers to a new school. On his first day, Michael (played by David Krumholtz) shows him around the school, and immediately someone catches his eye…Bianca Stratford (played by Larisa Oleynik). Only problem is, as Michael explains it, is that the Stratford sisters aren’t allowed to date.

One day when Bianca confronts her father, Walter (played by Larry Miller), about this, he decides to change the rule a bit. Bianca can date when her sister does. The problem here is that her sister, Kat Stratford (played by the wonderful Julia Stiles), wants nothing of it. She’s the type of girl who is an outcast from the kind of activities most high school kids partake in. She’s the kind of punk girl, who doesn’t care about anyone else, and is pretty much a complete bitch to everyone.

Cameron hears of this, and comes up with the only logical plan…find someone to date Kat. He gets a pawn that he can trick into paying off someone to go out with her, and here he lands on Joey Donner (played by Andrew Keegan). Joey is that pretty boy model type of boy, and he also wants Bianca, so he figures the plan will work well for him. They decide that the perfect guy for Kat would be Patrick Verona (played by Heath Ledger), the big badass in the school that everyone is afraid of.

Kat proves to be more of a challenge than Patrick was anticipating, and he finds himself having to do a lot more than he expected to get her to date him. In this whole process of trying to get together with Kat, Patrick finds himself falling in love with her.

It may sound a bit cheesy, but it’s actually really good. Maybe it’s just better for me because it holds some sort of sentimental value with a nostalgic feeling of my childhood. However, I definitely think the movie is good. Everything about it works just fabulous. You have a solid plot, really funny comedy, a good love story, memorable characters (not to mention excellent chemistry between them, especially Kat and Pat), and solid performances by the actors and actresses, just to name a few good things about the movie.

Call me crazy, but this is one of my favorite movies ever, and I loved watching it again. I’m sure this isn’t a movie that everyone would give a perfect score, but the film had some sort of undeniable charm for me, and it draws me in every time. I love this movie.

5/5