Apparently this story is a remake of Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of The Shrew’, but seeing as I’ve never read that one, I’ll just have to take their word for it. That said, the story of this fun little romantic comedy, is actually pretty well crafted. The cast is an ensemble, but we loosely follow one character in particular. Cameron has just come to a new school in the heart of Seattle. The people are strange charactures of normal kids. Everyone in their own little cliques. But hey Cameron’s a nice guy, he’ll have no problem making friends and meeting girls, right? Well, such is not the case, when Cameron falls head over heels in love with Bianca Stratford. This angelic vision isn’t just incredibly popular, but she is also resignated to a life alone. Her father, a somewhat overprotective but well meaning man, has decreed that Bianca cannot date any boys until her older sister, the indomitable Kat begins to date herself. So obviously the only thing for our poor hero to do is try to find someone to take Kat out for a night on the town. Things get complicate though when the only person he can find is the scary rebel kid Patrick. And in true Shakespearian fashion, everything will of course blow up in their faces… Sure it’s a little complicated, but then again, when is true love ever simple.
3.5/510 Things looks decent enough for a romantic comedy. I liked all the little counter-culture Seattle nuances slipped in. The quick dialogue, and beautiful people make the film an easy watch all around, but what really struck me as excellent was the music. This film, like every modern young Romantic Comedy must, has an up tempo cool, rock/punk music soundtrack. And no matter how often people tend to complain about that I don’t think there’s really anything wrong with it. Especially if like this one, it is filled with very cool semi-underground pop-punk bands. Not that a good soundtrack makes a movie by any means, but hey, it helps.
3/5This was the first ‘break’ as it were for both Heath Ledger, and Julia Stiles. And they both do firmly adequate jobs. They’re obviously both a bit too old for high school, but what do you really expect? Anyhow, the cast is fine, the comedy is delivered for the most part well, and although everyone is a bit too good looking for their own good, they’ve all got some nice attitude to bring them down to more believable realms. The direction by Gil Junger is also simple and adequate. It’s nothing really special for a veteran TV sitcom director. But it’s not too shabby either. The film plays well, the comedy works and at the end of the day, it’s just fun. 10 Things delivers what you’d expect, and’ll give you a few good laughs to boot.
3/510 Things is a fun film. It’s cute and simple, got a good beat, and has some attitude. Don’t stress too much about it making all that much sense, it’s only a romantic comedy. Just kick back and enjoy a bit of cinematic fluff.
