{"id":1284,"date":"2020-04-25T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-25T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwaslikemagic.com\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2026-04-18T11:11:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T15:11:55","slug":"10-things-i-hate-about-you-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/10-things-i-hate-about-you-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"’10 Things I Hate About You’ (1999) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this modern take on William Shakespeare\u2019s The Taming of the Shrew<\/a><\/em>, Kat Stratford is a pretty, but anti-social senior who has no time for the typical high school fare. Her younger sister Bianca is desperate to start dating, especially when Joey, the school\u2019s handsome but arrogant jock, starts to notice her. Unfortunately, their father is so paranoid about teen pregnancy that he refuses to let Bianca date until Kat does. It’s easier said than done because Kat has zero interest in dating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an effort to manipulate the situation, Bianca gets new kid Cameron, who also has a crush on her, to find a guy for Kat to date. Cameron and his friend Michael decide on Patrick Verona, the resident bad boy whose reputation is surrounded by outlandish rumors \u2013 he sold his liver for a new pair of speakers and allegedly ate a live duck once. But Cameron and Michael don\u2019t have much luck with Patrick on their own, so Michael convinces Joey to pay Patrick to take out Kat, the reward being that he can date Bianca himself. Got it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a year when teen comedies saturated the market, 10 Things I Hate About You really rose above the rest. For one, most of the teens in this movie were played by actual teenagers. But it was also a clever take on the Bard, maintaining the humor of the original source without delving into wacky, juvenile shenanigans that seemed to be front and center in so many other teen comedies that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s strange to watch this movie now and realize that both Heath Ledger<\/strong> and Julia Stiles<\/strong> were relatively unknown at the time. Ledger embodied the persona of the bad boy with a heart of gold, and Patrick\u2019s rendition of Frankie Valli\u2019s Can\u2019t Take My Eyes Off Of You<\/em>, backed by the high school band, became an iconic moment not only in teen comedies, but in rom-coms in general. Cue the swoon!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kat\u2019s sister thinks she\u2019s a freak, the boys think she\u2019s a bitch, and even her English teacher is annoyed by her frequent voicing of opinion. Nobody in this movie knows what to do with Kat, which is a pointed look at how the world, in general, perceives strong women. Stiles plays Kat with fierce, unapologetic independence, never needing to change who she is to capture Patrick’s heart. Honestly, it\u2019s refreshing to see a female lead grow throughout a movie like this without undergoing a physical transformation to make her more appealing. Kat is who she is, and she stays true to herself, even when she finally allows her more vulnerable side to show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her chemistry with Ledger is what makes this movie work. Both Patrick and Kat are outsiders, surrounded by people who don\u2019t know or understand them, and while neither seems to care, when they come together, it\u2019s clear they\u2019ve both been searching for that one person who does understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larisa Oleynik<\/strong> has the more typical story arc as Bianca, in which she discovers that dating the hot guy and being popular aren\u2019t as wonderful as she believed. Wannabe model Joey (Andrew Keegan<\/strong>) is self-absorbed and dumb, but thankfully, he\u2019s amusing enough for it not to be too obnoxious to tolerate. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Cameron, is as sweet as can be, instantly smitten with Bianca, and willing to go the extra mile to win her heart. The supporting players, notably David Krumholtz<\/strong> and Susan May Pratt<\/strong>, all add their own unique brand of humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are aspects of the movie that probably wouldn\u2019t fly by today\u2019s standards, but considering this movie was released twenty-one years ago, it\u2019s still surprisingly solid for a teen comedy. It still feels fresh and inventive, even two decades later. With a talented ensemble, a wonderfully 90\u2019s soundtrack, and a really witty script, this is one of the few teen rom-coms from the era that I think we can safely say is a classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched:<\/strong> 04\/13\/2020
Notable Song:<\/strong> Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You by Frankie Valli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating:<\/strong><\/div>
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10 Things I Hate About You Synopsis: A pretty, popular teenager can’t go out on a date until her ill-tempered older sister does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[424,487,1],"tags":[321,329,327,328,331,332,323,324,322,1426,326,3656,325],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-reviews","category-reviews-t","category-reviews","tag-10-things-i-hate-about-you","tag-329","tag-andrew-keegan","tag-david-krumholtz","tag-gabrielle-union","tag-gil-junger","tag-heath-ledger","tag-joseph-gordon-levitt","tag-julia-stiles","tag-larisa-olyenik","tag-larry-miller","tag-4-stars","tag-susan-may-pratt"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81606,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions\/81606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}