ACCEPTED
Director: Steve Pink Stars: Justin Long, Jonah Hill
Reviewed by PETER MALONE
A pleasantly anarchic little comedy.
There seems to be an American high school comedy every month. Many of them are of the leering variety. Many of them are simply inane. Not that this one doesn’t have a moment or two of leering – and it is not the most intelligent comedy to reach the screen.
However, the films that really are its forebears are not so much the campus comedies but films like Dead Poets Society, The Emperor’s Club or Mona Lisa Smile. It is actually about education and what it ought to be – in a more creative than formal and traditional sense. That probably makes it sound more profound than it really is. But, it does make a comic case for more spontaneity, creativity, relevance and student participation in studies.
Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers, Dodgeball, The Break Up) fails to get into any college. Pressured by his parents, he concocts a harebrained scheme with some student friends to fabricate a technological college with its own website which deceives parents. However, the site also has an admittance and acceptance icon – which attracts about three hundred students who were also not accepted elsewhere. What to do? With the help of an ex-professor rebel and ingenuity and luck, they succeed.
Yes, it is more than a touch adolescent but you would have to be a bit of a stick in the mud to disagree with the basic thrust of the film.