'10 Things I Hate About You' Movie Review

Well, I am certainly very far behind on the bandwagon, about 16 years to be exact. But it was 2am and I found myself deciding to finally give it a shot, after all, I had been meaning to watch this movie for about 2 years now, but after time I eventually forgot about it, until now. Now prepare yourself, because I can't promise that this review will be all that professional. (Light fangirling ahead)

 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

Starring: Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, and Andrew Keegan.

Synopsis: Kat Stratford is beautiful, smart and quite abrasive to most of her fellow teens, meaning that she doesn't attract many boys. Unfortunately for her younger sister, Bianca, house rules say that she can't date until Kat has a boyfriend, so strings are pulled to set the dour damsel up for a romance. Soon Kat crosses paths with a handsome new arrival Patrick Verona. Will Kat let her guard down enough to fall for the effortlessly charming Patrick?

Now, going into the movie I didn't quite understand just what I was getting into. Just that 

1. It was a 90s movie (barely)
2. My older brother loved it, and his movie taste is pretty valid
3. It had two of my favorite actors in it. It's a win-win situation.

With that in mind, I also believed it to be a full on Comedy. Silly me, forgetting that with the box I had put it into (sitting next to movies such as Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, and She's All That) there was almost always a emotional scene. And seeing it as simply a funny 90s movie wasn't doing it a great injustice.

I don't mean to make it seem that you have to over-analyze and really dig deep into the movie like I did. You can watch it and just laugh, smile, cry, finish the movie than just shake it off and forget about it. But I dunno, I believe there is much more to the movie than just that.

Now to get into the movie, it starts off and you are immediately introduced to Kat (Julia Stiles) and her younger sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), though they are sisters they are polar opposites. Immediately I was drawn to Julia's character. Her rough, abrasive attitude was entertaining and hilarious. She was a character that would most likely be irritating in real life, but very enjoyable from the pleasure of a screen.

For Bianca, I was surprised to not hate her as much as I would have thought to. I will admit that within the first minute of the movie I was already quite annoyed by her, she was your typical young, annoying sibling. But she definitely warmed up to me, her just like her sister, had a personality that was very hidden for awhile, and first only came out when around certain people, but throughout the movie they both had quite the character development.

Moving on from them two for a second, I would like to talk about the precious little Cameron. He is half in love with Bianca and really the reason the whole movie happens.

To start it off, he is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and he is so adorable, he's a little freshman nerd who has a major crush on the popular girl in school. Expect unlike most people, he does something about it, and he does his best not to give up on his dream to date her, even though pretty much everything is against that happening. Especially Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan), the hot shot, also popular, 'hot' boy in the school. Who also is a major jerk, but Bianca is too innocent and new to getting all this attention to notice.

In Cameron's hopes of getting Bianca to date him, he starts talking with her, and is faced with a horrible issue. Bianca can't date anyone until her sister Kat does, and really, with Kat's behavior, no one wants to, and that is just the way Kat likes it. Convinced that he'll find someone for Kat, he promises Bianca that he'll make sure she gets a boyfriend, blinded by his love for her and not realizing that Bianca plans on using this to be able to date Joey.

After going through a review of a group of boys, he notices Patrick (Heath Ledger), he knows immediately that he's their guy. With his new friend Michael's help, they set up a plan. Since Joey likes Bianca, they tell him their problem, and since Joey has money, he'll pay Patrick to take Kat on a date. But two problems surface.

   1. Kat doesn't say 'yes' easily, especially to a date

and 

  2. 

Well I guess you'll have to watch the movie for the second one.

I can usually never sit through a movie, it doesn't matter how good the movie is, unless I'm in a theater, I have to pause it at least twice. There wasn't a single time that I paused the movie. It was effortlessly funny, heart-wrenching (at times), and so gosh darn adorable.

The progression of Patrick's care for Kat is so unbelievably perfect. And really you can see the moment when he realizes that he actually generally cares for her, and that has to for sure be my favorite scene out of the whole movie. So I'm going to talk about it for a second, if you haven't seen it and you would like to experience the whole thing without knowing any of the scenes, I'm putting a very light spoiler warning just in case.

*Very light spoiler*

There's a scene where Kat is at a party (she was begged by Bianca to come, because like most of the rules, Bianca can't do it unless Kat does) and she has gotten very drunk because she was upset over something that Joey said to her. She has just danced on a table and had hit her head on the chandelier and fell from the table. But Patrick was able to catch her before she hit the ground. He carried her out of the house and to a nearby swing set so he could get her out of the lime light and would be able to actually make sure she was okay.

He set her on the swing next to him and they began talking, he asks her a question and when he is waiting for her reply, he turns to look at her and notices that she has passed out, worried that she has a concussion, he jumps from his seat and grabs her arms, on the verge of panic as he tries to wake her up. She wakes up quite quickly and is still too drunk to get what happened, but you can tell that she is at least a bit surprised by his panic

*Spoiler over*

Just the total worry he has for her throughout that total scene is absolutely beautiful and it really helped with his character arc. It showed that this had begun to become something that he wasn't just doing for the money.

There is one more scene I want to bring up before I go onto my overall analysis of the film, and this is a slightly bigger scene, but I noticed it and just had to bring it up.

*Light spoiler*

The scene I am talking about is the one right after the party, Kat is still clearly somewhat drunk and they're sitting in his car talking, and she leans over to kiss him. He hesitates for a moment, before turning his head. Now, I don't know what exactly was the intent for this scene, or why the director made him not kiss her, but with the way he hesitates, and by the way he had shown that he had cared for her before, I think that the reason he didn't kiss her, is not because he didn't want to. I mean look at him, the way he leans in for a second before turning away, and replies with "Maybe we should do this some other time" makes me believe that his reasoning was because he didn't want to kiss her while she was drunk. Not because he didn't like the way her breath smelled because of the alcohol, but because it wasn't right! She was not fully there, and being a decent human, knew it wasn't right to take advantage of her like that. Even if she was even half-there. So I just have to say, major props to that scene.

*Spoiler over*

Overall, this movie was so much more than I had first given it credit, and is perfectly made with the right amount of everything. The characters are funny, relatable, and inspiring (Every single one of Patrick's speeches to Cameron had me wanting to pull up a blanket and just listen to him give Cameron courage). The movie held everything together well, and unlike most movies, there wasn't a single unneeded moment, and not a single meaningless sex scene that was in the movie just because! (That alone made the movie on the top 10 list of greatest movies)

Now with this being my favorite movie (tied up there with 'We Bought a Zoo' I am not surprised that this is my longest review yet, and how ironic that I stayed up til 4am watching it, and 4am writing a review about it, who needs sleep? I do, very badly. Why must I do this to myself

Rate: 10/10

Favorite Character: That's tough, Kat and Patrick (Cameron is 2nd)

Should You Watch It? HAHA! Yes! Of course.