'Admission' doesn't make the cut

Like a Princeton reject, “Admission” just didn’t quite make the cut.

Actually, this new romantic comedy-slash-drama wasn’t even close to the cut.

Starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, “Admission” centers on Portia Nathan (Fey), a Princeton admissions counselor who makes her living off rejecting eager high school applicants more often than accepting them. She meets John Pressman (Rudd), the head of an alternative high school, who believes one of his students is not only Princeton material but Nathan’s son.

What looked like an endearing, original comedy starring Fey and Rudd ended up being a muddled, overwrought and genre-less film that takes as long to “find itself” as a high school senior.

“Admission” starts as a film about a woman on the brink of a breakdown. The audience meets Nathan in the midst of her failing 10-year relationship with her boyfriend, Mark (Michael Sheen), who fancies a Virginia Woolf scholar over Nathan. With Nathan’s focus on a promotion at work, the relationship dwindles when Mark announces he’s having twins. Well, the Woolf scholar is, anyway.

Then the film morphs into a rom-com as overtones of “they have to end up together, right?” override every scene Rudd and Fey are in together. Rudd far outshines the boring Fey, whose usual humor is lost in the technical, type-A personality of her character.

Soon, a messy family narrative enters the picture. Nathan resents her mother, Susannah (Lily Tomlin), an ardent feminist and free spirit, who Nathan feels never gave her the proper structure growing up.

Pressman, on the other hand, felt stifled by the privileged upbringing his white, upper class family gave him, so his rebellion included running away to remote corners of the world and helping those less privileged. Not such a bad way to live, but, to keep things complicated, he has a sixth-grade son, Nelson (Tavaris Spears), who he adopted from Uganda. All Nelson wants is some stability in his life. Sounding familiar yet?

And don’t forget about the extra ethical questions that come up. The writing, whether meant to be funny or sincere, isn’t good enough for the audience to actually believe Nathan can pull off the absurdly unethical practices to get her maybe-son into one of America’s most notoriously difficult schools.

“Admission” does make a few funny jabs at higher education and the oftentimes ridiculous admissions process it involves, but the jokes aren’t enough to carry viewers through 117 minutes of cliché romantic lines or complicated plot lines. Instead of seeing the movie, spend time re-reading your college entrance essays. They’ll make you laugh more.  
 
By Bridget Ameche