Accepted (film)

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[1]
Box office	$38.6 million[1]

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, Anthony Heald and Lewis Black in lead roles.

The plot follows Bartleby Gaines (Long), 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 it as if it were a real institution. It was released on August 18, 2006 and received mixed reviews from critics.

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 (S.H.I.T.). 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, who lost his athletic scholarship after an injury; and Glen, an outcast who has a low GPA and failed his SAT due to not signing his name. To make the "college" seem legitimate, Bartleby convinces Sherman to give it a functional website.

When his father insists on meeting the dean, Bartleby hires Dr. Ben Lewis, Sherman's cynical uncle and a former philosophy professor at Harmon College, to play that role, and he leases an abandoned psychiatric hospital adjacent to Harmon College, which the group renovates to look like a college campus. Their plan backfires when the website, which automatically accepts any applicant, enrolls hundreds of other rejects. Out of sympathy, 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 sculpting to more unusual courses such as meditation and psychokinesis, a subject one eccentric student wishes to study.

As the college is further developed, Bartleby creates a school newspaper (the SHIT Rag) and invents a mascot (the SHIT Sandwiches), while Lewis gives brutally honest lectures about life that draw large crowds; the students primarily spend their time partying. Meanwhile, the narcissistic and corrupt dean of Harmon College, Richard Van Horne, plans to tear down old and unused buildings on campus and 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 reveal the college as a fake. The dispute turns personal, as Bartleby has been vying for the affections of Hoyt's ex-girlfriend, Monica Moreland, since high school (Monica breaks up with Hoyt after discovering him with another woman).

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 through 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 and Hoyt's schemes.

After more renovations, the college reopens with more students enrolling, including Sherman and Monica, and Bartleby's friends joining the faculty. Bartleby finally earns the approval of his father, who is proud his son now owns a college. Van Horne walks to his car in the parking lot, only to watch it suddenly explode. Bartleby watches in astonishment as the eccentric student from earlier makes his interest in psychokinetic explosions a reality.

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).^[2]

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.^[1]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Accepted 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."^[3] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."^[4] However, audiences were more favorable toward the film, with CinemaScore giving it a grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.^[5]

Michael Buening from AllMovie rated it 3 out of 5 stars, acknowledging its humor and charm despite its flaws.^[6]

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.^[7] A Blu-ray version of the film was later released on January 19, 2021.

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