Ferris Bueller Goes to College?
Accepted Gets Good Grades

As we leave summer behind and enter into autumn, students return to school and the box office begins to run out of steam. The end of summer usually marks the end of the big-budget, Hollywood blockbusters and the return to the screen of the smaller films that studios didn't think could compete. This year, a back-to-school comedy called Accepted makes one last trip to the theater a necessity for students.

Accepted
Bartleby (Justin Long, second from left) and his pals didn't make it into college, so they create their own in the comedy Accepted. (Universal, 2006)
Directed by: Steve Pink
Written by: Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Mark Perez
Starring: Justin Long, Jonah Hill, Blake Lively, Adam Herschman, Columbus Short, Maria Thayer, and Lewis Black

Rated PG-13 (for language, sexual material and drug content)
Running time: 90 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 7 out of 10.

Justin Long plays Bartleby Gains, a high school senior on the verge of graduation who's application has just been rejected by a seventh college. Forging a letter of acceptance to a fake university (South Harmon Institute of Technology), Bartleby seems to have the beginnings of the perfect plan. He even enlists help from his best friend Sherman (Jonah Hill) to create a website for the college.

Immediately, his friends who hear about the scam start lending a hand with the understanding that they too will be "attending" South Harmon. The whole thing spirals out of control, however, when hundreds of rejected students find refuge in South Harmon's "Acceptance is Only a Click Away" motto. The website, it seems, has been churning out acceptance letters for anyone who applies.

Accepted has irreverence for higher education, but also gives audiences some very likeable underdogs to root for. The comedy varies in degree. The unfortunate acronym for South Harmon Institute of Technology, lends itself to plenty of jokes -- the kind prevalent in a teen movie of this kind. There are also some surprisingly high-brow moments with comedian Lewis Black, who plays the "dean" of South Harmon, as he discusses everything from health care to income tax.

Long is at his best here, playing Bartleby with the same determined energy that made his Warren Cheswick character so likeable on the television series Ed. He's not a loser. Just the opposite. He's the kid with a ton of potential but no focus.

My wife described Bartleby as Ferris Bueller for a new generation. In a way, she's right. It's almost as if the filmmakers asked how that teen icon from the '80s managed after high school. Now, perhaps, we have an answer. If anyone could have pulled off this stunt, it would have been Ferris. Whether or not Accepted becomes as popular as Ferris Bueller's Day Off remains to be seen.

I've always been a fan of outrageous college comedies (like Animal House, Revenge of the Nerds, Real Genius, and PCU). They are highly unbelievable, but enjoyable anyway. Accepted is an nice addition to the ranks of this kind of film.