(2000)
Starring: Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Larisa Oleynik, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Directed by: Gil Junger
Screenplay: Karen McCullah
This is certainly not the first time we have seen an "update" of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Not only was it updated with Cole Porter music in the rollicking film Kiss Me Kate, but you may or may not recall that it was also the subject of a highly-regarded episode of Moonlighting (the TV show that taught me to love banter -- I can still do whole scenes from memory). 10 Things I Hate About You is the high school version, much as Cruel Intentions was the high school version of Dangerous Liaisons. Although the story doesn't suffer from being placed in high school as much as Cruel Intentions did, it suffers from a different conceptual problem, which is that the underlying concept of The Taming of the Shrew is so dated and laughably out of sync with how high school kids think (especially high school girls, who I guess are the target demographic here) that it really defies updating. You can't make a non-sexist, modern-minded version of a story that depends for its very existence on the idea of a man getting control of a passionate woman and making her behave herself. It's just not possible. Therefore, trying to make a hip, cool, up-to-date movie with Shrew as its inspiration was a losing battle to begin with.
Heh-heh, Shakespeare, *wink wink* *nudge nudge*
Here, the shrew is Katarina Stratford (Stratford . . . get it?) (Julia Stiles), whose sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik, Nickelodeon's Alex Mack) is adored by a high school full of boys, but whose father (Larry Miller) won't allow Bianca to date until Kat does. Already, the attempt to find a modern equivalent of the father who won't marry off his younger daughter before his older daughter is in serious trouble, yes? At any rate, when the innocent Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Third Rock From the Sun) blows into town and spots Bianca, he knows he has to have her. There are two main obstacles: her father, and the odious Joey (Andrew Keegan, who once was the Object of Claudia's Affection on Party of Five). Joey also wants to date Bianca, so Cameron and his new pal Michael (David Krumholtz) hatch a plan. In this plan, they need someone to date Kat, which is a tall order, given that she's sort of the local snarky feminist badass. How will they get someone to take her out? Money, of course! But they have no money, so they call upon the wealthy Joey, who provides the cash, thinking that it is he who will eventually land the lovely Bianca.
Enter Patrick Verona (Verona . . . get it?) (Heath Ledger), a vaguely Australian guy who skulks around Padua High School (Padua . . . get it?) with dark clothing and a scowl. The plotters think he's the most likely to be unintimidated by Kat, so he's the recipient of the offer. Date her for money to free up her sister.
Proms and other plot innovations
Now, let me ask you this: How much of this movie can you write at this point? He asks her out, but she won't go. He wins her over, she goes, they like each other, he is wracked with guilt because he's basically a third-party prostitute. She finds out, she feels betrayed, he pursues her, they get back together, kiss, roll credits. Along the way, there will be the prom. You could write this stuff, and so could I, and we wouldn't even have to miss lunch.
Aside from the obviously derivative story (not the part that's derived from Shakespeare, but the part that's derived from the family tree of prom movies that most recently gave us She's All That), the biggest problem I had with this movie was that aside from Kat, well-played by the winning and funny Stiles, it seemed to have no clue who any of these people were. Patrick, in particular, is very poorly-defined, starting off as an intimidating creepy type, but quickly proving that he is not only a sap at heart, but a sap right there on the surface. It's unclear how anyone could have ever gotten the impression that he was scary, because he's so accessible and sweet. Similarly, Bianca starts out as a shallow Valley Girl, but when the script decides she should want to date the clumsy but charming Cameron, she turns nice without missing a beat. Huh? Who are these people? The only character I really got, other than Kat, was Cameron, partly due to nice work by Gordon-Levitt, who has proved a number of times that he's very capable, but is really trying out his young-leading-man muscles for the first time here.
Predictability and vulgarity -- two great tastes that taste great together
Moreover, the story just can't work. There's no "taming" that's going to happen, because Kat is so clearly the most intelligent person in the movie, and so clearly the one least in need of a change in her personality. Despite the fact that the central element of the shrew plot is lost, remnants of it drag through the movie like mostly-deflated helium balloons. Kat is pushy and falsely confident and just wants to be loved . . . heavens, that is a new and daring concept. (Yawn . . . is the world really so packed with women like this?) The only story is the inevitable and not-interesting romantic arc, which is damaged by the fact that as far as I could tell, the Patrick character had no discernible charm whatsoever. He has one good moment -- call it the marching band scene -- but other than that, he's flat as a pancake, personality-wise.
I would also comment that I had a hard time figuring out who this movie would be appropriate for (pardon the dangling preposition). It's really too juvenile in its plot to be aimed at adults, so it should logically be a high-school movie. In that case, however, it is far too crude and tasteless. Despite the fact that it got a PG-13 rating, this movie is heavy (like really heavy) on the gross and tacky sex talk. Example (and cover your ears if you're easily offended -- I'm trying to prove a point): when Patrick hears about how everybody is so in love with Bianca that they're willing to pay him to take out Kat, he says, "What's so great about this girl? Does she have beer-flavored nipples or something?" Beer-flavored nipples. And that's the nice guy. That's the romantic lead. It's just too coarse and nasty for the tone it wants to have, which is ultimately sweet. I don't mind South Park being South Park -- if that's your tone, that's fine. What I object to is the South-Park-ization of everything, as if no matter what kind of movie you're making, you should put the word "nipples" in there, just to prove you can.
Let me digress for just a minute to tell a story. When I was in middle school, our band director was writing the play we were going to perform in the spring. It was a Faust update, and at one point, when the character discovers that he's in really big trouble and is probably going to hell, the script had the character swearing in frustration, "Hell fire and damnation!", at which point the devil said, "Sooner than you think, sweetie." The "hell" line was nixed as not appropriate for a seventh-grade play, at which point a new line was written: "Oh, man, I'm cooked!" To this, the devil still replied, "Sooner than you think." Not only is the "cooked" line more appropriate for seventh grade, the "cooked" line is funnier. My objection to a reference to "beer-flavored nipples" is not only that it's crude, but that it's lazy. They're counting on me to laugh out of discomfort and shock, so they're not worried about whether I laugh out of actual amusement. Take five minutes to think about it, and you could write a better line for the same place in the script.
The bottom line
So, consider this movie an unfortunate waste of some strong young actors (especially Stiles, who is fine) in service of a crummy script that doesn't deserve them. Next time, they should skip the Shakespeare, write a real story, and stay away from the scenes where a kid draws a really crude and obscene picture on another kid's face. (Ick.)
Untamed,