At first glance, a free adaptation of Shakespeare's 

The Taming Of The

Shrew by The Clearasil Players seems like a terrible idea, if nothing else because
there are no shrews left to tame in American romantic comedies. But as the
tempestuous "shrew" in the sweet, immensely likable 10 Things I Hate About You,
Julia Stiles is so self-assured in her rebelliousness that she'll only soften once the
rest of the world and the film itself, for that matter is shaped on her terms. In a
funny twist on Shakespeare's antiquated premise, stand-up comic Larry Miller
plays an overprotective single father and obstetrician who's so worried about teen
pregnancy that he refuses to let his virginal daughter, Larisa Oleynik's, date until
Stiles, her older sister, does the same. And even then, she's forced to spend a few
moments wearing an empathy belly. Oleynik's suitors, a vapid tube-sock model
(Andrew Keegan) and an earnest new kid (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), conspire to fix
Stiles up with her equally caustic male counterpart, Heath Ledger. Quirky,
inventive, and brimming over with clever visual gags and colorful supporting
characters, 10 Things uses Shakespeare as a jumping-off point to playfully send up
a society that doesn't know what to do with a strong woman. Unlike Rachael
Leigh-Cook in the inexplicably popular She's All That, Stiles isn't asked to
lobotomize herself for the sake of romance.

Though episodic and scattershot at times and there's not much to like about the
wall-to-wall Letters To Cleo on the soundtrack 10 Things is still the brightest and
least exploitative of the new teen comedies.

Anton Medeea, 11 STS.