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DESCRIPTION
Cameron falls for Bianca. The only problem is that Bianca is forbidden to date until her ill-tempered, completely un-dateable older sister Kat goes out. In an attempt to solve his problem, Cameron singles out the only guy who could possibly be a match for Kat: a mysterious bad-boy with a nasty reputation of his own. Includes theatrical trailer. Genre: Feature Film-Comedy Rating: PG13 Release Date: 7-SEP-2004 Media Type: DVD
It's, like, Shakespeare, man! This good-natured and likeable update of The Taming of the Shrew takes the basics of Shakespeare's farce about a surly wench and the man who tries to win her and transfers it to modern-day Padua High School. Kat Stratford Julia Stiles is a sullen, forbidding riot grrrl who has a blistering word for everyone; her sunny younger sister Bianca Larisa Oleynik is poised for high school stardom. The problem: overprotective and paranoid Papa Stratford a dryly funny Larry Miller won't let Bianca date until boy-hating Kat does, which is to say never. When Bianca's pining suitor Cameron Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets wind of this, he hires the mysterious, brooding Patrick Verona Heath Ledger to loosen Kat up. Of course, what starts out as a paying gig turns to true love as Patrick discovers that underneath her brittle exterior, Kat is a regular babe. The script, by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, is sitcom-funny with peppy one-liners and lots of smart teenspeak; however, its cleverness and imagination doesn't really extend beyond its characters' Renaissance names and occasional snippets of real Shakespearean dialogue. What makes the movie energetic and winning is the formula that helped make She's All That such a big hit: two high-wattage stars who look great and can really act. Ledger is a hunk of promise with a quick grin and charming Aussie accent, and Stiles mines Kat's bitterness and anger to depths usually unknown in teen films; her recitation of her English class sonnet from which the film takes its title is funny, heartbreaking, and hopelessly romantic. The imperious Allison Janney Primary Colors nearly steals the film as a no-nonsense guidance counselor secretly writing a trashy romance novel. --Mark Englehart
