Rated PG-13 for language and some sexual material.
Starring Tina Fey,Paul Rudd,Michael Sheen,Lily Tomlin,Wallace Shawn,Nat Wolff,Gloria Reuben,Travaris Spears, Sonya Walger.
Written by Karen Croner, based on the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz.
Directed by Paul Weitz.
GRADE: ** & 1/2 out of four stars
GOSPEL-DOCTRINE-O-METER: (One Moroni out of four) Admission has all the appearance of being a sweet story of a middle-aged woman coping with motherhood and her career. There are a few moments of learning to be more selfless, but such messages are mired in a dull movie with plenty of sexual misbehavior.
Comedian
Carol Leifer once told a joke about getting accepted into a community
college and that the only requirement an applicant needed was a pen.
That pretty much describes my entry into higher education, even though I
since excelled beyond such humble beginnings and acquired a graduate
degree. For others who aspire to get into more prestigious institutions,
entry is a little harder, and competition is a little more intense.
Such is the setting for “Admission”, a new film starring Tina Fey as a
Princeton University “Admission”s officer who struggles with
professional ethics and mid-life crisis.
Fey plays Portia, whose
job it is to screen thousands of eager applicants who want to get into
the prestigious Ivy League school. Her relationship with her
professor/boyfriend (Micheal Sheen) hits the skids when he gets a fellow
professor pregnant. Portia takes off on recruiting trip, where she ends
up at a new-age alternative high school. There, she meets school
director John (Paul Rudd), who introduces her to a gifted student named
Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), who wants more than anything to attend Princeton.
John is also convinced that Jeremiah is Portia's illegitimate son she
gave up for adoption 18 years earlier.
As Portia reviews
Jeremiah's application, she dismisses the obvious conflict of interest
and does all she can to promote him for acceptance. Further complicating
the issue is budding romance with John, who struggles with the need to
travel the world. John's wanderings are a strain on his adopted son
Nelson (Tavaris Spears), who longs for a little stability. Portia's
mother Susannah (Lily Tomlin) offers little comfort during her trials
due to an overabundance of progressive ideas.
As the deadline for
selecting Princeton's newest freshman class nears, Portia must decide
whether to take drastic measures on behalf of a boy who may or may not
be her son and whether to pursue a serious relationship with John.
“Admission” isn't
a terrible film. It has the charm of Fey, who does an adequate job of
playing a conflicted professional working woman. Paul Rudd turns in an
equally adequate performance, while Lily Tomlin delivers her usual
laughs.
“Admission” is supposed to be a romantic comedy, but it
isn't that funny, nor romantic, nor touching. Although director Paul
Weitz tries to make a movie like his more sentimental “About a Boy” (2002), “Admission” has
the distinction of being a movie without much distinction. It's a film
stuck somewhere between commentary on the cruelty of snooty college
admissions and middle-aged maternal instincts. I suppose the so-called
“conflict” represented in the movie doesn't exactly strike me as being
all that bad. I mean, when the main struggle is centered around getting
into Princeton, that doesn't seem like the end of the world to a guy who
is proud of his community college roots.
No comments:
Post a Comment