ACCEPTANCE

For a young girl running the gauntlet of college applications, SATs, admissions essays, overly ambitious parents, advanced placement exams, rejections, and acceptance letters, being number one is more about the journey than the destination…

For Taylor Rockefeller (Mae Whitman, Arrested Development), the destination is Yates, currently ranked a low 50, and her safety school of choice. She’s an out-of-place, blue-haired college applicant—depressive, hopeful, bright, courageous, struggling to cope with her parents break-up, and wanting to get out from under the manic social strategies and insane ambitions of her publicly poised and privately damaged mother, Nina (Oscar and Golden Globe nominee Joan Cusack, Working Girl). For Nina, Yates is a nightmare, a scandal to the name Rockefeller; although the only connection to those Rockefellers is Grace’s estranged husband Wilson’s (Mark Moses, Mad Men) propensity for androgenic alopecia.

When Wilson, Taylor’s only sane lifeline, packs his bags and leaves, Taylor is left to fend for herself as she, her Harvard-bound childhood sweetheart, Harry, and her best friend, Maya, anxiously await word on their applications, their futures, and their dreams. As a political battle is waged on both sides of the application process, and as a private war is played out at home, Taylor learns an invaluable lesson, whether her mother likes it or not, that there is no secret formula for success and that acceptance of others is only part of the game. Acceptance of yourself is the real prize.

A girl on the verge walks a fine line between self-destruction and self-discovery in this engagingly acerbic satire based on Susan Coll’s acclaimed novel.