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Most
teen movies suffer from the fact that they are movies made
for teenagers, a notoriously conformist and self-conscious
group. These people, including those a few years before and
after the ages of 13-19, usually have pretty limited tastes,
not because they are stupid, but because they don`t want to
look weird in front of their peers. Why make a fool out of
yourself if you say that your favourite song is from Bobby
Darin, or someone as equally unhip, when you ought to like
Eminem like everybody else. With movies, the motive for seeing
them is usually just the fact that, well, the movies are new
and are in the multiplex so we might as well see them. Since
teenagers seem to be so passive about this, I thought that,
if I were some evil projectionist, I`d replace the advertised
movie with an Ingmar Bergman movie, and see what they would
say. I have a feeling they would watch the whole thing, but
claim to their friends that it was the worst thing they ever
saw and that they didn`t know why they bothered going.
If
teens are seen as conformist, then movies aimed specifically
at them will present the demographic in typical ways. Such
is the case with 10 Things I Hate About You. This is a teen
movie which, obviously, is not a classic of any sort. Of course,
it will appeal to teenagers, and it shows their habits, style
of speech and dress, as well as a bunch of hot young things
guaranteed to keep the prospective audience in enough of a
swoon that they might forget about the cliched storyline.
But beneath that, there is some actual humour, occasional
bouts of clever writing, and a few good actors in interesting
parts.
Basically,
the story is pretty simple. A new student arrives to a local
high school, and on his very first day finds love at first
sight with a pretty, popular girl. He, of course, will do
anything to date this pretty young thing, so he becomes her
study partner in French class, in hopes of getting closer
to her. But no matter how well the two may get along in study
hall, he will never be able to date her, because her father
has forbidden her to date at all, at least until graduation,
of course! Crimping the popular girl`s pining for a real social
life is the fact that her sister, played by Julia Stiles,
is an opinionated sort who deliberately rejects the conventions
of teenage society, which of course makes her a social outcast,
and utterly dateless, and the father soon hits on the inspiration
that, yes, you are allowed to date ..... whenever your sister
does. The new kid, and his friend, decide that they must get
Stiles a date, so they go after what they believe is the most
likely candidate - a seemingly nasty fellow, who has a reputation
for being so twisted and anti-social that one of the endless
rumours about him is that he once ate a live duck. In a sense,
he sounds like a caricature of Judd Nelson`s Bender character
in The Breakfast Club; someone who rejects society by being
revolting and rude to the point of oppression to everyone
around him. There is much more to the plot, including the
introduction of a sleazy and narcissistic pretty boy who becomes
an obstacle in the new kid`s romantic hopes, but let`s just
say that things turn out as expected, and that the rude boy
who is picked as a pawn in this dating game ends up truly
falling in love with Stiles. And of course there is a prom.
Even
with all of these typical teen trappings, there were a few
good things in this movie. Julia Stiles` character is impressive,
because she does not find herself forced to sacrifice her
integrity or personality in order to gain love. I was, in
fact, dreading the moment where she would go for a make over,
physical and psychologically, the message being that she was
indeed like everybody else if only she would stop and realize
how worthy she was, which, in translation, means to stop being
an opinionated young woman and start dating, drinking and
smoking up like the rest of us. But I didn`t have to dread
the moment, because it never arrived. Even at the end of the
film, Stiles is still her usual self, except now she has a
love who understands her.
I`m
reminded of Ally Sheedy`s character in The Breakfast Club,
because Sheedy was the negative connation of the outcast.
She is depicted as twitchy, an obnoxious liar, and just plain
weird, and the message at the end is very clear: she needs
to conform (and wear lots of make-up and look pretty, just
like Molly Ringwald!!) to understand her worth, and, as a
teenage girl, such conformity is crucial. Only then will she
receive happiness and love, which happened all too quickly
in the impossible and ridiculous ending to an otherwise fine
film. She is not an appealing person to be with, which is
of course the point: she is not just different, but totally
contrary to the everyday social relations of teenagers. And
it is not because she feels superior, but because she, deep
down, feels inferior, and she projects that inferiority to
the public.
Stiles
also depicts a character who stands outside "typical" adolescence,
yet she is not a freak, not in the slightest. She is opinionated,
intelligent, and while she perhaps a bit too hostile, it is
understandable considering the unimaginative people she has
to deal with. In fact, her attitude while contrasted with
the other characters made me dislike much of the other character`s
empty-headedness. I wasn`t laughing when a few characters,
including her own sister, called her "bitch" behind her back,
although I wouldn`t doubt that many (if not most) of the adolescents
watching this film thought very much the same thing about
Stiles as those characters did. And there is no message of
conformity, even though her sister harps on her about how
for once she ought to live a normal life like the rest of
us. Stiles is still the same at the end of the film, and it
would be awful if she were otherwise. While movies may have
entered a downward spiral in the 1990`s, at least the depiction
of unique teenage women has changed for the better.
The
priceless Larry Miller plays the sisters` father, and, while
he is a stereotypical restrictive dad, has some impressive
scenes, and, for me, at least, made such a stereotype disturbingly
understandable. He is a doctor, and has witnessed numerous
births by teenage girls, and does not want to see his daughter,
who pines so much to live a wild and active social life, end
up like these pitiable girls. And there is a brilliantly satirical
scene, when the girl is finally able to go out to a social
gathering, when the father commands her to walk around the
house before she leaves with "the belly" - a garment meant
to teach the wearer what it feels like to be pregnant. The
father is trying to tell her that this is where she may end
up, now that she has a social life.
There
are a few pointless excursions, and much of that, oddly enough,
is because the script confuses us into who the main focus
really is, or maybe it was as a result of editing. We think
that it will be the new kid and his hope to go out with the
popular sister, but the movie does not really deal with them
a lot. The greatest impact is by far Stiles and the social
outcast who becomes her love. The guy turns out to not be
such a freak after all, and, after a few minutes, he suddenly
becomes quite the charmer. This fact makes his earlier scenes
feel very much tacked on, and completely impossible, which
would be annoying if the guy who plays this character were
not any good, but, fortunately, he is. And, of course, the
plot is fairly predictable. But that`s what you expect from
a teen movie, so considering those facts, this film is not
so bad after all.
David
Macdonald
David
Macdonald's Movie Reviews
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