in december of 1996 , a little movie called " scream , " was released , became a box-office smash , and resurrected films targeted at teens . first , it was teen slasher movies that were the big fad ( both " scream " movies , " i know what you did last summer , " " urban legend , " etc . ) , but just recently , the popularity has switched over to the teen comedy genre ( a 'la '80s john hughes ) , starting with last june's " can't hardly wait . " it may be the first week of april in 1999 , but so far this year we have been given a movie aimed at the 25-and-under market almost every single week : " varsity blues , " " jawbreaker , " " cruel intentions , " " simply irresistible , " " the rage : carrie 2 , " and " the mod squad . " coming april 9 are two more of this type : " never been kissed " and " go , " and on april 23 , we've got the teen satire " election " and the teen horror-comedy " idle hands . " jeesh ! out of all of these moves , however , the one that is most similar to the latest incarnation , " 10 things i hate about you , " is this past january's mediocre , ho-hum " she's all that . " although similar in plotting ( ok , darn near identical ) , " 10 things i hate about you , " a modern-day version of shakespeare's " the taming of the shrew " ( " she's all that " got its inspiration from " pygmalion " ) , is an infinitely superior film in every department , from the smart direction by first-time feature director gil junger to the charming and well-written screenplay by karen mccullah lutz and kirsten smith to the striking ensemble cast , who give the best group of performances in a teen comedy since 1985's " the breakfast club . " and to top it all off , in the inevitable climax set at the prom , at least we didn't have to once again suffer through a goofy , inappropriate dance sequence ( who could forget , or want to remember , for that matter , this ludicrous development in " she's all that ? " ) . the day wide-eyed , shy new student cameron james ( joseph gordon-levitt ) starts school at seattle-based padua high , he is swept away at the sight of the beautiful and popular sophomore , bianca stratford ( larisa oleynik ) . although he doesn't know french , he purposefully learns some of it just so he can tutor her , but finds that her paranoid gynecologist father ( larry miller ) won't allow her to date until her bitter , unconventional older sister , kat ( julia stiles ) , a senior , decides to . kat , of course , has sworn off the likes of boys , but cameron sets out to find someone that will be the perfect match for her , which is exactly what he finds in the form of the rebellious patrick verona ( heath ledger ) . complicating matters , cameron's dorky friend , michael ( david krumholtz ) , decides to use a wealthy jock , joey ( andrew keegan ) , who also has his sights set on bianca , as a pawn so that he will pay patrick to get kat to go out with him , and then cameron hopes to steal bianca away from joey . as you can see , " 10 things i hate about you " includes a huge number of characters , some of which i haven't even mentioned , such as kat's shakespeare-obsessed friend , mandella ( susan may pratt ) and bianca's materialistic comrade , chastity ( gabrielle union ) . at a short , but well-used running time of 98 minutes , all of the characters are perfectly handled , satisfyingly developed , and , for the most part , are not treated as caricatures ( another flaw of " she's all that , " where the bad guys ( and gals ) ran around constantly saying , " you're vapor " ) . since i could sympathize with the realistic depictions of the central characters , and since many of the comedic and dramatic scenes were surprisingly effective , i got completely caught up in all of the relationships and was thoroughly entertained . aside from a good screenplay , it's the performances that can make or break a movie , and director junger has really hit the jackpot . aside from joseph gordon-levitt ( " 3rd rock from the sun " ) , who gives his strongest performance to date here , none of the actors are that well-known , but it is this aspect that brings a particular freshness to the proceedings . as the main character of kat , julia stiles ( last seen in the miniseries " the '60s " ) is marvelous and always believable , and certainly has a bright future ahead of her . even though it is her role that is initially the most difficult and hard-edged , it was easy to identify with kat's way of thinking ( she is against the silly tradition of the prom and loves reading sylvia plath ) , and i completely admired her individuality . no one , i think , could have portrayed her as perfectly as stiles does . heath ledger , as the infamous bad-boy of the town , injects much life into patrick , and has a lot of chemistry with stiles . one other actor of note is larisa oleynik who , with the help of screenwriters lutz and smith , is able to turn bianca into a person with multi-dimensions , even though she is accurately self-centered at the on-set . in one truthful scene , cameron angrily asks her if she has always been so selfish , and bianca grudgingly realizes that yes , she has . one off-beat element of the film , and a source of some hearty laughs , is the way that the school's staff act , which is strikingly unformal . allison janney , as the guidance counselor ms . perky , who is writing a trashy harlequin romance novel , is comic dynamite , as is daryl " chill " mitchell as the english teacher , who reads shakespeare to the class in rap and , at one point , sends kat to the office because , for once , she actually thinks one of his assignments is really good . although there are a few cheap laughs that are thrown into the film near the beginning , most of it actually works , especially in the humorous and witty dialogue exchanges and quirks between the characters . in one very funny scene , chastity asks , " i know people can be overwhelmed , and they can be underwhelmed , but can people just be . . . whelmed ? " at another point , bianca and kat's father ( a stand-out larry miller ) , who is constantly terrified that his daughters are going to get pregnant , only allows bianca to go to the prom on one occasion : before she leaves , she has to put on the heavy fat suit he has so she will get an idea of what it's like to be pregnant . " 10 things i hate about you " once and for all proves that there is still life in the teen comedy genre , and this movie is probably more reminiscent of the great john hughes than any other film of the '90s . it also helps that the movie has a perfectly-assembled soundtrack , mixing indie-rock with new wave '80s songs ( and with , thank goodness , no rap ) . by the film's end , it actually had me rooting for certain characters to get together , and i was also quite pleased with how everything was wrapped up , especially in the final scenes involving kat and bianca , kat and her father , and a flawlessly-acted and moving sequence in which kat gets up to read the poem she has written for her english class ( this is where the title comes from ) . luckily , i doubt i would be able to find ten things i hate about " 10 things i hate about you , " but the positive aspects of the film far out-number ten .
