Accepted is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Steve Pink (in his directorial debut) and written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and Mark Perez. It follows a recent high school graduate who is uncertain what he wants for his future and, after being rejected by every college to which he applies, formulates a plan to create a fake college alongside his friends to earn his parents' approval. When other rejects complete the one-click application process on the website created for the "college", the friends quickly discover how difficult it is to genuinely run an academic institution as they struggle to keep up the ruse.
Plot
Bartleby Gaines is a persuasive senior from William McKinley High School in Wickliffe, Ohio, who, among other pranks, creates fake IDs. His gifts do not extend to grades, however, and he 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 (SHIT). His best friend, Sherman Schrader III, who has been accepted into his father's prestigious alma mater, Harmon College, aids Bartleby and fellow reject Rory Thayer, who only applied to Yale University and was rejected due to legacy preferences; Darryl "Hands" Holloway (Columbus Short), who lost his athletic scholarship after an injury; and Glen, who has a low GPA and flunked his SAT due to failing to sign his name. To make the "college" seem legitimate, Bartleby convinces Sherman to create a functional website for the school.
When his father insists on meeting the dean, Bartleby hires Sherman's peculiar uncle, Dr. Ben Lewis, a former philosophy professor at Harmon College, to play that role, and he leases an abandoned psychiatric hospital adjacent to Harmon College, which he and the rejects renovate to look like a college campus. Severe complications arise when the website, which automatically accepts any applicant, enrolls hundreds of other rejected students. Realizing these people have nowhere else to go, Bartleby lets them believe that the school is a real place where they will finally feel 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 the culinary arts, sculpting, meditation, to unusual courses such as psychokinesis, a subject one eccentric student wishes to study.
Bartleby creates a school newspaper (the SHIT Rag) and invents a mascot (the SHIT Sandwich), while Lewis gives brutally honest yet inspirational lectures about life; the students primarily spend their time partying. Meanwhile, the narcissistic and corrupt dean of Harmon College, Richard Van Horne, makes plans to construct the Van Horne Gateway, a park-like walkway similar to Yale and Harvard's, hoping to make Harmon look more prestigious and increase their number of rejected students. He dispatches Harmon's student body president Hoyt Ambrose to free up the nearby properties, but when Bartleby refuses to relinquish the lease for the South Harmon property, Hoyt tries to expose the college as a fake. The dispute turns personal, as Bartleby has been vying for the affections of Hoyt's ex-girlfriend, Monica Moreland (Blake Lively).
Hoyt exposes South Harmon as a fake institution through Sherman, who is attempting to join Hoyt's fraternity as a legacy but is constantly humiliated and abused by them. After debasing Sherman once more, the fraternity coerces him to hand over all the files he has created for South Harmon.
Hoyt contacts all the students' parents, and with Van Horne, reveals the school is a sham. Soon after, the school is forced to close, and Bartleby is at risk of prison time for fraud. However, Sherman, who has already discovered much of Harmon College's corruption, files for accreditation for South Harmon, giving Bartleby a chance to make his college legitimate. At the subsequent State of Ohio educational accreditation hearing, Bartleby makes an impassioned speech about the failures of conventional education and the importance of seeking knowledge and personal growth by following one's own passions, convincing the board to grant his school a one-year probationary accreditation to test his new system and make the school adequate, thus foiling Van Horne's schemes.
The college reopens, renovated and with more students enrolling, including Sherman and Monica. In addition, Bartleby finally earns the approval of his father, who is proud his son now owns a college. As the film closes, Van Horne walks to his car in the parking lot, only to watch it suddenly explode. Bartleby is shocked that the eccentric student from earlier has made his interest in psychokinetic explosions a reality.
Cast
Justin Long as Bartleby "B" Gaines, a high school graduate who, after being rejected by various colleges, creates a college for his fellow rejects
Jonah Hill as Sherman Schrader III, Bartleby's best friend who is accepted into Harmon and a legacy for the BKE Fraternity
Adam Herschman as Glen, an outcast who joins Bartleby's college and is obsessed with cooking
Columbus Short as Darryl "Hands" Holloway, a football star who loses his scholarship after an injury and joins Bartleby's college
Maria Thayer as Rory Thayer, an honor student who fails to get into Yale and joins Bartleby's college
Lewis Black as Dr. Ben Lewis, a jaded former Harmon professor whom Bartleby hires to be the Dean of his college and Sherman's uncle
Blake Lively as Monica Moreland, Bartleby's high school crush who is dating Hoyt
Jim O'Heir as Sherman Schrader II, Sherman's father
Darcy Shean as Mrs. Schrader, Sherman's mother
Reception
Critical response
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Rotten Tomatoes reports the film holds an approval rating of 38% based on 117 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. 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."[2]Metacritic gives the film a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[3]
Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "A−" on A+ to F scale.[4]
Michael Buening from Allmovie gave it 3 out of 5 stars.[5]
By the end of its run, on October 19, 2006, Accepted had grossed $36,323,505 domestically and $2,181,504 internationally, with a worldwide total of $38,505,009.[1]
Home media
The film was released on DVD on November 14, 2006, in both widescreen and fullscreen formats. The DVD came supplied with deleted scenes and a gag reel. Accepted was also one of the newly released on the HD DVD format before the format was discontinued.[7]
