Accepted (film)

This article is about the film. For the general concept, see acceptance.

Accepted is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Steve Pink, marking his directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Mark Perez. The film stars Justin Long, Blake Lively, Jonah Hill, Anthony Heald and Lewis Black in lead roles.

Accepted
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Steve Pink
Screenplay by	Adam Cooper Bill Collage Mark Perez
Story by	Mark Perez
Produced by	Tom Shadyac Michael Bostick
Starring	Justin Long Blake Lively Anthony Heald Lewis Black
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Edited by	Scott Hill
Music by	David Schommer
Production company	Shady Acres Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	August 18, 2006 (2006-08-18)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$23 million
Box office	$38.6 million

The plot follows Bartleby Gaines, a high school graduate who, after being rejected by every college he applies to, concocts a plan to create a fake university with his friends to convince his parents he's moving forward with his education. As more students, also rejected from other schools, mistakenly apply to the fictional South Harmon Institute of Technology (S.H.I.T.), Bartleby and his friends decide to run the school as if it were a real institution.

The film was released by Universal Pictures on August 18, 2006, and received mixed reviews from critics while grossing $38.6 million against a $23 million budget.

Plot

Bartleby Gaines is a strongly persuasive high school senior in Wickliffe, Ohio. His gifts do not extend to his grades, however, and Bartleby receives rejection letters from all the colleges to which he applies, including those with high acceptance rates.

To gain approval from his demanding father, Bartleby creates a fake college, the South Harmon Institute of Technology (S.H.I.T.), and is joined by Rory Thayer, who only applied to Yale University and was rejected due to legacy preferences; Darryl "Hands" Holloway, who lost his athletic scholarship after an injury; and Glen, an outcast who received a 0 on his SAT due to not signing his name.

To make the "college" seem legitimate to his father, Bartleby convinces his best friend, Sherman Schrader III, who has been accepted into his father's prestigious alma mater, Harmon College, to aid him by building a website. The two also hire Sherman's cynical uncle and a former philosophy professor at Harmon College, Dr. Ben Lewis, to pose as Dean. They then lease an abandoned psychiatric hospital near Harmon College and renovate it superficially to give the appearance of a college campus. Their plan initially succeeds in fooling Bartleby's parents, but backfires when the website automatically enrolls hundreds of other applicants.

Out of empathy, Bartleby lets them believe the school is real and that they will finally be accepted, despite objections from his friends. After a visit to Harmon disenchants him with traditional college life, he decides to let the students create their own curriculum. This ranges from traditional topics of study like culinary arts and woodcarving to more unusual courses such as meditation, skateboarding, and even psychokinesis.

As the college is further developed, Bartleby starts a school newspaper, a clothing line, and a mascot, while Dean Lewis gives brutally honest lectures about life that draw large crowds; and the students of South Harmon spend most of their time partying.

Meanwhile Richard Van Horne, the narcissistic Dean of Harmon College, plans to tear down old and unused buildings on and near campus to construct a park-like walkway similar to Yale and Harvard's, hoping to make Harmon look more prestigious. Van Horne dispatches Harmon's student body president Hoyt Ambrose to buy up the nearby properties, but Bartleby refuses to relinquish his lease, becoming an obstacle to Van Horne's ambitions.

The dispute turns personal when Monica Moreland, a girl Bartleby has been vying for the affections of since high school, breaks up with Hoyt after catching him with another woman. She begins frequently visiting Bartleby at South Harmon, eventually deciding to transfer and start a relationship with him.

Meanwhile, Schrader is attempting to join Hoyt's fraternity as a legacy but is constantly humiliated and abused by its members. After discovering Sherman at a South Harmon party, the fraternity forcibly coerces him into revealing South Harmon as a sham. Hoyt uses the information to contact all the students' parents and Van Horne exposes South Harmon as a fake institution. The school is forced to close, and Bartleby is at risk of prison time for fraud. Sherman, who directly experienced much of Harmon College's abuses, files with Ohio's State Board of Education for accreditation, giving Bartleby a chance to make South Harmon a legitimate college.

At the subsequent hearing, Bartleby's attempts to meet the board's standards for accreditation frequently fall flat and proves their unconventional curriculum and student services to be lacking. Believing himself to be doomed, Bartleby makes an impassioned speech about the failures of conventional education and the importance of seeking knowledge and personal growth through following one's own passions. This convinces the board to grant his school a one-year probationary accreditation to test his new system.

After some renovations, the college reopens with even more students enrolling, including Sherman and Monica, and Bartleby's friends becoming part of the faculty. Bartleby finally earns the approval of his father, who is proud his son now runs a College. In the film's final scene, Van Horne's car spontaneously explode due to an eccentric student having learned psychokinesis.

Cast

• Justin Long as Bartleby "Floyd Pambrose" Gaines, a high school graduate who is rejected by various colleges and creates a college for fellow rejects
• Jonah Hill as Sherman Schrader III, Bartleby's friend who gets into Harmon and a legacy for the BKE Fraternity
• Blake Lively as Monica Moreland, Bartleby's high school crush who is dating Hoyt
• Maria Thayer as Rory Thayer, an honor student with a proclivity for meditation tired of living a rigidly structured life, who failed to get into Yale and joins Bartleby's college
• Anthony Heald as Richard Van Horne, the corrupt dean of Harmon
• Lewis Black as Dr. Ben Lewis, a jaded former Harmon professor and Sherman's uncle, whom Bartleby hires to be the Dean of his college
• Adam Herschman as Glen, an underperforming outcast who joins Bartleby's college and is obsessed with cooking unusual yet delicious foods
• Columbus Short as Darryl "Hands" Holloway, a football star with a talent for sculpting who lost his sports scholarship after an injury and joins Bartleby's college
• Travis Van Winkle as Hoyt Ambrose, arch-rival of Floyd Pambrose, head of the BKE Fraternity and Student Body President at Harmon and Monica's boyfriend
• Diora Baird as Kiki, a former stripper rejectee who was accepted into Bartleby's College and runs the school's clothing line
• Ann Cusack as Diane Gaines, Bartleby's mother
• Mark Derwin as Jack Gaines, Bartleby's father
• Robin Lord Taylor as Abernathy Darwin Dunlap, an anxious, ADD-stricken outcast who eagerly applies to Bartleby's college
• Kellan Lutz as Dwayne, a Fraternity brother at Harmon's BKE
• Brendan Miller as Wayne, a Fraternity brother at Harmon's BKE
• Hannah Marks as Lizzie Gaines, Bartleby's little sister
• Joe Hursley as Maurice, an aspiring rock musician
  • Hursley's real-life band, The Ringers, portray Maurice's bandmates
• Jeremy Howard as Freaky Student, an eccentric student who wants to learn how to cause psychokinetic explosions
• Kaitlin Doubleday as Gwynn, Hoyt's rebound girl
• Ross Patterson as Mike McNaughton
• Artie Baxter as Mike Chambers
• Ray Santiago as Princeton boy
• Greg Sestero as a frat boy (uncredited)
• Ned Schmidtke as Dr. J. Alexander
• Jim O'Heir as Sherman Schrader II, Sherman's father
• Darcy Shean as Mrs. Schrader, Sherman's mother and Dr. Lewis's sister

Release

Accepted debuted at #5 at the U.S. box office, grossing $10,023,835 during its opening weekend, trailing behind Snakes on a Plane, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (in its third weekend), World Trade Center (in its second weekend), and Step Up (in its second weekend).

By the end of its theatrical run on October 19, 2006, the film had grossed $36,323,505 domestically and $2,181,504 internationally, resulting in a worldwide total of $38,505,009.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Accepted holds an approval rating of 38% based on 115 reviews, with an average rating of 5.2/10. The critical consensus reads: "Like its characters who aren't able to meet their potential, Accepted's inconsistent and ridiculous plot gets annoying, despite a few laughs." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." However, audiences were more favorable toward the film, with CinemaScore giving it a grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Michael Buening from AllMovie rated it 3 out of 5 stars, acknowledging its humor and charm despite its flaws.

Home media

Accepted was released on DVD on November 14, 2006, available in both widescreen and fullscreen formats. The DVD included special features such as deleted scenes and a gag reel. Additionally, it was released in the now-discontinued HD DVD format. A Blu-ray version of the film was later released on January 19, 2021.

See also

• Camp Nowhere – 1994 film by Jonathan Prince
• F.A.L.T.U – 2011 Indian film by Remo D'Souza

External links

• Official website
• Accepted at IMDb
• Accepted at the TCM Movie Database (archived)
• Accepted at Box Office Mojo