Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Lewis Black
Directed by Steve Pink
Rated PG-13
3 Pulses
For high school seniors, the most serious issue is college?whether or not to go, where to go, what to do once they get there. For the unlucky souls that don’t get in to their dream schools or even their fallback schools, options are limited.
Rather than face the disappointment of his parents, Bartleby Gaines (Long) fabricates a school website and renovates an old psychiatric hospital to trick them into believing he got in the South Harmon Institute of Technology (you can figure out the acronym for yourselves).
With a little help from friends in a similar situation and former educator cum university dean Lewis (Black), they manage to fool the folks and the few hundred desperate would-be scholars who show up for classes, tuition in hand.
In the band of misfits that create their own curriculum on a huge board, these are the rejected freaks, geeks, rebels and loners. One mother even says as she drops off her son, “No biting!” Long is likeable as the school leader, but his best friend Schrader (Hill) gets the most laughs as the mistreated rush/hazing victim trying to be the fourth generation in his family at the “real” university down the street.
At his bitter best, Lewis Black’s onscreen persona is so much like his stand-up act that he nearly steals the show. His rants on the university system are hysterical and he speaks frankly about its drive of consumerism and the suppression of creativity within it. Watching the students cluster around him to listen to his lectures, you get the feeling they’re really taking in his words as wisdom.
Accepted is in the same vein of classic collegiate films like Revenge of the Nerds and Animal House, though it hesitates to take the jokes to the colossal level of its counterparts. The movie plays it safe, leaving us with a message celebrating individuality, encouraging students to discover themselves instead of bellies aching from laughter. Though it’s funny and has some memorable performances, I would’ve preferred the belly ache.
