RUTHERFORD ON FILM: ‘Accepted’: A Wonderful Couple of Hours Dreaming of Ideals, Clashing with System
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Critic
Huntington, WV (HNN) -- A long time ago in a politically incorrect world decades ago nearly everyone challenged the roots of authority and tradition against creativity and experimentation. “Accepted” has morsels of fun and thought that harkens to the days of burning draft cards, bras and incense, staging protests against national policy in the streets, and challenging the norm to discover whether it passes the multiculturalism diversity test.
Proving filmmakers have not forgotten those now fabled “Let the Sunshine In” days and nights, “Accepted” blends an oil and water combination of “The Harrod Experiment” (minus the now ‘hard’ R nudity) and “National Lampoon’s Animal House” for an improbable look at the pressures of NOT getting into the college or university of your choice.
Stretching the “slacker” term to include not just the grade and SAT deficient, the film’s collection of college rejects consist of skate-boarding enthusiasts, girl watchers, and a hazing despondent dude from P.C.U. (Politically Correct University a.k.a. Harmon U.)
The promising premise: When Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) receives rejection slips from all the schools to which he applied – even his “safety” school -- he appeases his frantic parents (Mark Derwin, Ann Cusack) by with the help of geek Sherman (Jonah Hill) creates a nice dot.com website for South Harmon Institute of Technology (eyes and brain cells on duty, don’t miss the just given joke!). A computer generated acceptance letter proves only the tip of the curriculum as Sherman took the ‘working website’ requirement seriously… allowing it to accept all who apply!
Faced with the need for a facade, Gaines and fellow rejectee’s lease a former mental hospital and create a campus with the generous input of the parent’s tuition checks for labor and materials. Learning too late about the enormous number of new students coming to the Institute, Gaines and his buddies turn education into a service friendly field asking the students: What do you want to learn?
Here’s where first-time director Steve Pink takes a tri-written screenplay (one of those credited is Bill Collage) into a cushy liberal hyperbole for advocating non-conventional, do your own thing methods. Actually, the film well blends the happenstance, “We’re in collage now, we can do whatever we want” sophomoric attitudes with the crimp in the party of finding a dean and winning accreditation.
“Accepted” brings out laughs with its course titles --- B.S. 101, girl watching, rock music --- but I fall back to the idealism of “people who desire to better themselves” finding a school to stimulate and nurture their creativity and passion for the field in which they have an interest.
I know, it’s academic hokum to think you can just take classes in your ‘major’ field, but the premise of clashing against a concretely bolted ‘system’ earns my endorsement, despite the film’s obvious flaws found with building a college out of serendipity. Would not a city official have discovered this ‘new’ school before a clash with the established college over land?
Still, it’s a fun flick just for the couple of hours contemplating idealism.