‘10 Things’ Another Modern Take On A Classic

Roll over Shakespeare, tell Jane Austen the news: Another classic work has been made into a lively high-school comedy.

“10 Things I Hate About You” is a hilarious, romantic, heartfelt modernization of “The Taming of the Shrew,” in much the same way that “Clueless” updated Austen’s “Emma,” and it’s a triumph of the Will.

Julia Stiles is dynamite as Kat, an embittered senior who refuses to date because she’s been burned by love (basically, she is Alanis Morissette’s target audience). Complication: Her sister, Bianca, can’t date until Kat does, so she hires a guy who hires a guy to find somebody to hit on Kat.

Methinks Stiles is going to be a star. She has a singular, angular beauty and a tough intelligence that makes you believe she has no time for highschool stupidness (when a dope smashes into her car, she barks, “Remove head from sphincter. Then drive”).

At the same time, Stiles suggests a depth to Kat, a sense that she knows that hate is very close to love. When Kat does fall for a guy and gets burned again and reads him a sonnet she has written about the experience, Stiles shows that Kat’s toughness is simply a mask for a tender heart that has been treated recklessly.

The “10 Things” script is as fresh and clever as that zippy title. The movie is stuffed with sharp supporting characters, including a bawdy guidance counselor who’s writing a sex book and Kat’s insanely overprotective father (Larry Miller), who says forbidding Kat and Bianca to date allows him to “sleep the deep sleep of a father whose daughters aren’t out getting impregnated.”

All of this hews pretty closely to the Cliff’s Notes version of “The Taming of the Shrew,” but screenwriters Karen Lutz and Kirsten Smith supply their own character insights, too - the kinds of things you’ve never put into words but that you know to be true (“You don’t buy black lingerie unless you want someone to see it,” one girl says).

As a bonus, someone with good taste has assembled a terrific soundtrack, with sparky remakes of 20-year-old tunes like “Cruel to Be Kind” and “I Want You to Want Me,” some new stuff and Joan Armatrading’s devastating “The Weakness in Me,” one of the all-time saddest love songs.

All in all, “10 Things” is a delight and, if this Shakespeareteen thing is going to become a trend, I eagerly await the “Julius Caesar” in which Brutus and Antony struggle for control of the Student Council or a “Richard III” in which the title character is ostracized by his fellow Structure employees because of his iconoclastic shirt-folding technique.

“10 Things I Hate About You” Location: Lyons, Spokane Valley Mall, Showboat Credits: Directed by Gil Junger; starring Julia Stiles, Larry Miller Running time: 1:34 Rating: PG-13