“Some asshole paid me to take out this really great girl.” “Is that right?” “Yeah, but I screwed up. I, um, I fell for her.” (Patrick Verona) – Released in 1999, “The 10 Things I Hate About You” is about a boy, Patrick Verona who is paid to date a girl, Katarina (Kat) Stratford. As in most teen love movies, he realizes he was wrong and eventually falls in love with her.

The movie starts with Cameron James (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a likeable, shy boy getting a tour around his new school where he sees Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynick) a pretty, popular girl with a problem: she isn’t allowed to date. Her older “shrew” sister, Kat (Julia Stiles), an abrasive and somewhat scary girl, isn’t allowed to date either. Their overprotective dad changes the rule: Bianca can now date if Kat does. The problem with this is that Kat is a feminist who has sworn off guys for good. Cameron finds out about this and comes up with ways he can get around it. He comes across Patrick (Heath Ledger) a rebellious teen who smokes cigarettes, drinks, and has been said to have eaten a live duck once. He just might be crazy enough to take out Kat. He enlists the help of Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan), a rich conceited boy who always gets what he wants.

Patrick is relentless in trying to get Kat to date him, and she eventually gives in. He keeps up the charade for a while, but he soon realizes he’s in love with her. While most of this movie is very stereotypical for a romantic teen movie; the boy and girl hate each other at first but slowly start to like each other, it is also different and refreshing. Kat is very different from many main female characters. She isn’t worried about dating, isn’t trying to be popular, and doesn’t care what people think about her. Patrick is somewhat stereotypical of a main male character; a bad-boy who turns good when he falls in love with the girl, but he is also original in his own way. He isn’t worried about fitting in with everyone at school and also doesn’t care if anyone likes him, like most male leads in any teen movie I’ve ever seen .

This is one of my favorite movies ever. Heath Ledger is one my favorite actors. I like how he can play any character from a high school student to the joker in Batman. He made Patrick’s character original. Julia Stiles also made her character better than anyone else could have. Everyone in this movie played their parts really well. The first time I saw this movie, I thought it would be like every other teen movie. Within the first couple minutes I already knew I was going to love it. I saw it a few years ago, and it still remains one of my favorite movies.
I definitely recommend this movie. It will leave you wanting to know what’s going to happen to Patrick and after the credits. It is original and will become one of your favorite movies as well!