Heath Ledger singing Frankie Valli’s “Can’t Take My Eyes off You” might be reason enough for 10 Things I Hate About You to be deemed my favourite movie.
Released in 1999, Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) can only start dating if her ultra-feminist, school-reject older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) starts dating first. New kid at school, Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), falls for Bianca and formulates a plan for school bad-boy Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) to take her out. But as the fake dating and enemies-to-lovers trope goes, the two start falling for each other.
On March 31, 2024, 10 Things I Hate About You will celebrate its 25th year anniversary, and as I eagerly re-watch it, I fall back into loving it for everything it is and everything it isn’t…
“I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?”
“I think you can in Europe.”
Chasity and Bianca in 10 Things I Hate About You
For starters, the movie is just so quotable. In each scene, I find myself laughing or mentally writing down a piece of dialogue I need to steal for myself. While each character fits snuggly into their designated cliche character trope (bad boy, dumb blonde, popular guy, angry feminist outcast, etc.) one thing they all have in common is their ever-so-natural wit and lightning-speed comebacks.
See Patrick’s “Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?” or Kat’s sarcastic “Am I that transparent? I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby.”
On top of stealing their dialogue, I’m stealing their wardrobes. While late ’90s fashion has recently revived itself, Kat and Bianca’s style merge at an intersection of cool-girl and preppy-girl and is consistently and simplistically wearable.
Kat’s long skirts, crop tops, low-waisted trousers, and platform flip-flops scream ’90s cool, while Bianca’s summer dresses, hair clips, and cropped cardigans are recycled annually on my summer Pinterest boards.
But the quality that shines the brightest and will last another 25 years into the future is the pure fun and satisfaction seen in the chemistry of the characters. A quality that makes a movie worthy of being timeless is when, as a viewer, you long to be part of the group on the screen.
Julia Stiles recalled in an interview, “We jumped in and we were all so open-hearted and not self-conscious, which I learned later doesn’t always happen on set. It was a really special time.”
Each actor in the movie seems to effortlessly embody their character; Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the nervous, loveable Cameron so well, while Andrew Keegan perfectly plays the egotistical, pretty boy Joey. Meanwhile, the two leads make the enemies-to-lovers trope as craveable as any devoted rom-com fan would want.
It’s hard to believe this was Ledger’s breakout role. The award-winning, late actor is on the top of my list for romantic leads with his charisma, romantic (and musical) charm and smile. His back-and-forth banter throughout the movie with Julia is so effortless I’m convinced that every time he touches Kat’s hair, it’s improvised out of pure affection for one another.
Where the movie thrives on sharp-witted dialogue, covet-worthy costumes, and a cast bursting with chemistry, I’m able to recognize where director, Gil Juger, falls into simplistic tropes the early 2000s are so famous for.
10 Things I Hate About You follows the same pretty, suburban, rich white girl that so many movies in this genre do. (Bring It On, Mean Girls, 13 Going on 30, Never Been Kissed, and the list goes on). As Kat’s English teacher points out to her, “I know how difficult it must be for you to overcome all those years of upper-middle-class suburban oppression.”
Notably, most feminist women don’t have the privilege of backing their cars into arrogant boys’ cars when they make sexist comments…
Today, Kat’s feminism can be better titled “white feminism.” Even so, in 1999, she was one of the first to be in a leading role reading The Bell Jar and pointing out that “in this society, being male and an asshole makes you worthy of our time.”
At the end of the day, I think every woman can make use of Kat’s comebacks. For instance, saying, “Did your hairline just recede?” and having the ability to smile when someone calls you a “heinous bitch.”
On top of it all, what makes this movie my outlier for all the stereotypically enhanced teen rom-coms of the 2000s is the way in which it doesn’t take itself so seriously… not even a little bit, not even at all. 25 years later this movie still remains my favourite for the pure fun I have while watching it.
So many scenes and characters in the movie exist purely for the sake of entertainment and nothing more. Cameron’s friend Michael (David Krumholtz) accidentally motorcycles off a hill at school, Allison Janney’s only trait is her erotic novel, and Kat’s only friend in the movie (Susan May Pratt) only gets a plot a third of the way through the movie. And each time you laugh at its almost aggressive silliness while also questioning why it was even in the movie at all. These scenes all act like an inside joke behind the scenes that you’re dying to be a part of.
But here it stands, with a stellar cast and flavourful charisma 25 years later. An hour and 37 minutes of perfect “unseriousness” and relentless charm.