Accepted (18 August 2006)
directed by Steve Pink
starring Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Blake Lively, Adam Herschman, Columbus Short, Maria Thayer, Lewis Black, Mark Derwin, Ann Cusack, Hannah Marks, Jeremy Howard, Anthony Heald, Ned Schmidtke, Alex Winter
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MPAA rating: Studio: Universal Pictures, Shady Acres Entertainment Script: Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Mark Perez Music: David Schommer Running time: 90 minutes Tags: colleges; Comedy; rejection Tactical strength: [5/10]
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for language, sexual material and drug content
I went into Accepted with pretty low expectations. I had seen the trailer and expected a bunch of frat-house humor, but Accepted exceeded my expectations. I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but with a few really funny lines and the stereotypical warm-and-fuzzy comedy ending make a good starting point for freshman director Steve Pink.
Bartleby "B" Gaines (Justin Long) somehow has managed to get rejected from every college to which he has applied. Throughout the film, he demonstrates he has above-average intelligence, a good heart, and even a good memory for obscure facts, but his college essay "I don't know where I'm going" doesn't go over well with the acceptance boards. After getting a hard time from his parent, Bartleby decides to create a college, the South Harmon Institute of Technology -- you figure out the acronym. Justin uses his computer skills to create letterhead and an acceptance letter, and he recruits best friend Sherman (Jonah Hill) to create a fully functional web site for the college. As with most comedies with a plot based on a lie, the snowball of problems continues to grow bigger and bigger. When Bartleby's father (Mark Derwin) gives Bartleby a check for $10,000 -- first semester tuition -- he also tells Bartleby to make an appointment to meet the dean. Desperate to make his parents proud, Bartleby uses the tuition money to rent an abandon mental hospital, make material repairs, and convince Sherman's Uncle Ben (Lewis Black) to act as the college dean.
Accepted takes place in that twisted place I call the National Lampoon Universe. If you can suspend your disbelief far enough to believe in (and laugh at) someone toting their dead mother-in-law across the country on the top of a station wagon, than you can accept the equally ludicrous events in Accepted. Sherman made the college web site too functional, and on the first day of school, hundreds of accepted students appear for classes. In an anti-academic way, Bartleby has students put the classes they want to attend on a white board. So, South Harmon literally has classes in "Doing Nothing" and "Sticking it to the Man." Of course, you cannot have a comedy without a villain, and Dean Van Horne (Anthony Heald) of the nearby Harmon College (where Sherman attends) wants to appropriate the South Harmon campus land for an expanded entryway into his prestigious university. Van Horne arranges to steal the South Harmon mailing list and sends out letters to all the parents, temporarily shutting down the college. As scenes escalate, Bartleby must appear before the state accreditation board to try to keep his new college open, where he delivers the expected "moving speech."
None of the events or the outcome could take place in our universe, but you certainly get a few good laughs. And this seems like a good vehicle to promote Justin Long who does an above average job in his first leading comedic role.
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