Okay, here's the deal. I first read Shakespeare when I was in high school, and, like most everyone, I absolutely hated it. I despised it in a way that reached Biblical proportions. I would've gladly set fire to every paperback copy of anything that had the name William on it. Torched them, and giggled madly as they burned, and toasted weenies over the coals, and danced in the fading light of the embers.
Then I saw my first Shakespeare play, live and in person. T'weren't a bunch of brain-dead high schoolers being forced to read aloud from a book while a teacher patted the rhythm for iambic pentameter on her desk with a ruler. This was Shakespeare as it was meant to be witnessed, spoken as words flowing from mouths of characters, and it was wonderful. Suddenly, I understood what Hamlet was all about. I got the jokes, I sensed the tension, I felt the power.
Now, Shakespeare's an Oscar winner! Can you imagine? And people are finally accepting The Bard into their dodecaplexes. There've been some pretty noble attempts over the past few years. Mel Gibson did a surprisingly decent version of Hamlet; Kenneth Branagh did even better versions of Hamlet and Henry V. I thoroughly loved the version of Othello he was in with Laurence Fishburne. And, as much as I was against it when I first heard about it, that MTV version of Romeo and Juliet was a pretty vivid attempt to bring Ol' Will to the Gen X set. A completely faithful script, but with the gloss and mentality of the teenage crowd, fitting since the story is about teenage lovers.
But how to get Ol' Will in a little deeper? How can we get Shakespeare to the kids, to make a whole new generation realize that Shakespeare is good for you like oatmeal, but tastes like Trix? Simple response -- don't tell 'em. Hide Will amongst the rest of the teen comedies that are coming out in the spring, and let them find it for themselves. Now, this idea could be a great one or it could blow up like a dead raccoon on a hot asphalt road. It depends on how it's done, right?
Guess what? Somebody did it, and did it right. There's a new teen comedy out now called 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Julia Stiles (The Devil's Own), newcomer Heath Ledger, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (TV's "Third Rock"). On the surface, it looks kinda mindless, the way most teen films are made today. But, in actuality, it's an updated version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. And, despite a horrible first ten minutes, it's a very good movie, and a nice translation of The Bard into teen-speak.
In Padua High School, there are two sisters, Kat (Stiles) and Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) Stratford. Bianca is the perfect student, thoughtful, and lovely to boot. Her sister Kat is pure Hellspawn. She's harsh, hateful, and ultra-femi-nazi from the word go. When newcomer Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) falls for Bianca, he runs into a jam trying to date her. See, Mr. Stratford, the girls' father (played wonderfully by Larry Miller, one of the funniest comedians ever) is an extremely overprotective sort, and he won't let Bianca date until Kat dates. Problem is, who in their right mind would willingly go out with a demon seed like Kat? Who's gonna risk their life, limb, and manhood to this shrew? (Get it? Shrew?)
Cameron and his buddy Michael (David Krumholtz) have a plan. They're going to arrange a date for Kat. Their candidate is Patrick (Ledger), a longhaired transfer student that no one really knows a lot about, other than he's as tough as Kat is. Cameron has to pay Patrick to do it, but Patrick begins to flirt with Kat, something no one has ever done before. No one has ever treated her like a girl, and no one has ever stood up to her. Should I tell you what goes on from there? Nah...
Look, it would've been easy to do a knock-off of Shrew, and let it fall into the abyss of crappy teen-targeted material. Thankfully, somebody has some brains, though. Director Gil Junger, a sitcom veteran ("Ellen", "Dharma & Greg"), does the unthinkable, and actually treats his target audience like thinking people. By doing so, he makes a movie ten times better than anything offered to the teen crowd in years, and also makes it just as enjoyable for adults. Amazing! How revolutionary! Make a movie that can appeal to everyone without patronizing them!
It also helps that he has fresh talent to make his story work. Of the featured kids in the movie, only Joseph Gordon-Levitt has any real fame in movies and TV. The rest are very good newcomers, without egos and attitudes, and it shows in every scene. Stiles positively tattoos her role, not easy for a role portrayed by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor on screen. She maintains the nasty attitude, but she also becomes warm and lovely when she breaks into a blushing giggle, and she plays a slapstick drunk for a lot of laughs, too. Ledger is just as easy to watch as the James Dean-wannabe loner who's not afraid to try a wacky song-and-dance number to impress the object of his growing affection. Oleynik and Gordon-Levitt are very engaging as the couple whose love depends on this other love to work.
But, let's not give Junger all the credit here. The script, by Karen McCullah-Lutz and Kirsten Smith, maintains a witty level despite having to draw so much from Ol' Will's original. References to the Bard are pretty obvious (Padua as the high school name, Stratford as the girl's last name...), but they also add their own touches of shine. In particular, making the girls' father such a top character. Miller is well known for his cameos and small supporting stuff, in things like Pretty Woman and The Nutty Professor. He has a delivery, though, that can pierce your heart. When he has good material, he's top drawer, and he has the material here to make his screen moments worth every second. I'd love to see what McCullah-Lutz and Smith could do with some other of Shakespeare's works, in particular, Twelfth Night. Easily adaptable to a teen crowd if done right, and with even better jokes courtesy of Will himself. Hmmmmmm....
A quick word about the first ten minutes -- they stink on ice, man. Why there was a need to cram a ton of simple-minded sex jokes into the beginning is beyond me. Do not let these insipid first minutes turn you off to the rest of the movie. If I was betting, Junger had no say-so in these scenes. They don't look like the rest of the movie, they don't fit the movie, and they almost wreck it before the engine warms. It's as if some Studio Suit decided there weren't enough dirty words and cheap giggles in the finished product, and demanded more be put in. Stick to it through these opening minutes, and you'll see a whole new movie appear right before your eyes.
Also, to the fogies out there (you know who you are), don't let the high-school theme frighten you away. 10 Things I Hate About You is far from your normal teen comedy. It's a bright, well-done retake on the classic tale by Shakespeare, done by some of the freshest new faces in filmdom. It won't disappoint, and you just may find yourself interested in the original too. Fun thing is, if you go back and read the original, you'll understand it a lot more this time. Imagine that, learning. In a movie. What a concept...
Image copyright Touchstone Pictures.
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in for observation