Accepted
Accepted | |
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Directed by | Steve Pink |
Screenplay by |
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Story by | Mark Perez |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Matthew F. Leonetti |
Edited by | Scott Hill |
Music by | David Schommer |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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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 (in his directorial debut) and written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and Mark Perez. It follows a prank-loving 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 decide to try and run it like a real academic institution.
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,
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
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
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'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.
Cast
- Justin Long as Bartleby "B" 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
- Adam Herschman as Glen, an 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
- 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
- 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
- Blake Lively as Monica Moreland, Bartleby's high school crush who is dating Hoyt
- Mark Derwin as Jack Gaines, Bartleby's father
- Ann Cusack as Diane Gaines, Bartleby's mother
- Hannah Marks as Lizzie Gaines, Bartleby's little sister
- ADD-stricken outcast who eagerly applies to Bartleby's college
- Diora Baird as Kiki
- 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
- Anthony Heald as Richard Van Horne, the corrupt dean of Harmon
- Travis Van Winkle as Hoyt Ambrose, head of the BKE Fraternity at Harmon and Monica's boyfriend
- Kaitlin Doubleday as Gwynn
- Ross Patterson as Mike McNaughton
- Artie Baxter as Mike Chambers
- Kellan Lutz as Dwayne
- Brendan Miller as Wayne
- 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
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
Box office
The film made $10,023,835 in its opening weekend and opened at No. 5 at the U.S. box office, behind Snakes on a Plane, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby's third weekend, World Trade Center's second, and Step Up's second.[6]
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. Supplemental materials included deleted scenes and a gag reel. The film was also released on the now-discontinued HD DVD format.[7] A Blu-ray version was released on January 19, 2021.
See also
- Camp Nowhere – 1994 film by Jonathan Prince
- F.A.L.T.U – 2011 film by Remo D'Souza
References
- ^ a b c "Accepted (2006)". Box Office Mojo.
- ^ "Accepted (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
- ^ "Accepted Reviews". Metacritic.
- ^ "ACCEPTED (2006) A-". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20.
- ^ "Allmovie's review of Accepted". www.allmovie.com.
- ^ "Weekend Box Office Results for August 18-20, 2006". Box Office Mojo.
- ^ Tom Woodward. "News: Accepted (US - DVD R1 - HD) - DVDActive". Archived from the original on September 14, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
External links
- Official website
- Accepted at IMDb
- Accepted at AllMovie
- Accepted at the TCM Movie Database
- Accepted at Box Office Mojo