Accepted
is a funny and entertaining (if a bit inconsistent) trip back to the kind of teen
flicks popular in the 80s. Films like Risky Business, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's
Day Off with a storyline somewhat similar to the more recent Old School. Accepted
is by no means in the same league as the aforementioned classics, but it has a
similar tone – it also shares a few common elements with Animal House. When
I first read the synopsis of the film I was immediately doubtful that they could
make such an outlandish premise work. There's only so far that suspension of disbelief
can take you.
Justin
Long plays Bartleby Gaines a popular kid in High School, who fooled around a little
too much and hence received nothing but rejection letters to the many colleges
where he applied for admittance. Naturally his parents are none-too-pleased by
this development and in order to ease their disappointment he comes up with a
rather far-fetched notion of creating a phony college that sends him an acceptance
letter - typed on official letterhead that he creates on his computer. To further
sell his reuse he gets his buddy Glen (Adam Herschman) to quickly create a website
for the South Harmon Institute of Technology. A sister school to the prestigious
Harmon University that so many of his ambitious classmates (including Glen) will
be attending.
Things
begin to get out of hand when Bartleby (B's) parents insist on having a chat with
the Dean of S.H.I.T. Enter Lewis Black, an uncle of Glen's who washed out as a
professor years ago, but cleans up well enough to pass for a Dean. The major problem
B faces, however, is that he now needs an actual facility. So together with a
few of his high school classmates whom also failed to be accepted to college (Maria
Thayer – Strangers With Candy) (Columbus Short – You Got Served) they
find an abandoned mental hospital and in the space of a 2 minute montage have
slapped together enough of a "college" to fool Mom and Dad complete
with dorm rooms and Dean's office. Again if you're willing to just say "screw
it - I'm here to enjoy myself" Accepted can work. Justin Long has come a
long way in a short time. His timing and delivery are remarkably confident –
almost like he watched Ryan Reynolds when they did Waiting together, picked up
on what Reynolds does well and jettisoned the things Reynolds does wrong and has
set his sights on becoming a new-age Chevy Chase. He was very impressive, just
when you thought he'd cross the line into smarmy-land he'd pull back.
After
managing to fool his parents into believing that a run down old loony bin is a
fine institution of higher learning, bigger problems begin to present themselves.
For example not only did Glen make the School's website look legit, he made it
operational. Thus, just like that scene from Weird Science, when the doorbell
rings, we open it to find several hundred people eager to come in. In both cases
they came to party, only in Accepted it's under the guise of going to college.
What to do with all of these all American rejects? Naturally if they turned them
away they'd be no better than the colleges who'd rejected them, not to mention
the fact that every last one of them is prepared to hand B a tuition check for
$10,000.
Meanwhile
at the real Harmon University Glen is being hazed mercilessly by a bunch of fraternity
douche-bags similar to the ones we all knew and loathed in Animal House. A subplot
develops with the evil Dean of Harmon (Anthony Heald, Hannibal's last supper in
Silence of the Lambs) that involves his wanting to buy up the land where the Loony
Bin once stood and he puts one of the Hitler youth in charge of taking care of
the dirty details. The frat boy's girlfriend is the lovely Blake Lively (Sisterhood
of the Traveling Pants) who eventually becomes the object of B's desires. I'm
not going to tell you if and how the shit hits the fan, I'll just say that there
are enough entertaining bit parts and just genuinely funny situations to give
Accepted a marginal recommendation. The film loses steam at about the hour mark
and the final courtroom-like finale is a compendium of played-out clichés
about acceptance and tolerance in a world that has become increasingly fractured
and impersonal. I don't know what all these damn words mean, Accepted made me
laugh enough times to thumb it up, I could have saved myself a lot of time if
I'd have just started off with that. That's what I get for going to college.
