ACCEPTED

A high school senior creates a college of his own in the comedy ACCEPTED. Bartleby Gaines has applied to several colleges, but has been accepted by none, much to the dismay of his mother and father. Faced with parental denunciation and public embarrassment, Bartleby invents the South Hampton Institute of Technology, with his friend Sherman creating a website to fool Bartleby’s parents. The lie begins to spin out of control for Bartleby, as his dad begins to question where the college is and wants to view the campus for himself. One thing leads to another, and Bartleby ends up creating the pseudo-college, South Hampton Institute of Technology.

Bartleby Gaines is a poor man’s version of Ferris Bueller. The main difference between Matthew Broderick’s Ferris and Justin Long’s Bartleby is that Ferris never bit off more than he could chew. ACCEPTED is an occasionally fun and harmless college romp that loses all resemblance of reality once the pseudo-college is created. South Hampton Institute of Technology is a college students dream of with unlimited partying, unlimited eating and most importantly, unlimited slacking. I admired the spirit of ACCEPTED, and felt Long’s performance was on-key, funny and likable. The movie’s downfall lies in the fact that Bartleby has pulled off serious fraud, and that despite his ornery nature, we cannot root for him to succeed. A collection of screenwriters try to have it both ways, ending the film with a clichéd and completely unconvincing courtroom scene reminiscent of ANIMAL HOUSE. ACCEPTED doesn’t pass or fail, but resides in the school of mediocrity.

Grade: C