Admission

Starring: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Michael Sheen, Lily Tomlin, Sonya Walger
Directed by: Paul Weitz
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
2013

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An admissions officer (Tina Fey) tries to help a student who wants to get into Yale, and who a teacher (Paul Rudd) believes is the son she gave up for adoption years ago.

Tim: I'm actually surprised that I liked Admission. While it's not a great film, it does enough right that I'd consider this an entertaining, fun little movie. That is a bit shocking, because the film just didn't look very good at all. Sure, it had the appeal of teaming up Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, but this looked like a bland, by-the-numbers romantic dramedy. However, in the hands of director Paul Weitz, he manages to make the film better than it probably should have been.

The best aspect of this film is that the script is smartly written. At five or six places in this film, I figured I knew exactly what would happen next. When you've seen over 2,500 movies like I have, you start to figure out how most Hollywood stories will play out. And yet, time and time again, Admission proved me wrong. It set the stage for the story to take an expected, well-trodden path, and at the last second, it switched gears, surprising me. I loved that this film continually defied expectations to tell its own story. That made the whole thing feel unique and interesting. It really worked hard to subvert our expectations. Now, I do believe that a few of these endeavors actually hurt the story, rather than helped it, but I have to give a film credit when it tries so hard not to take the easy path. That was my favorite part of the film.

The story itself is only mildly interesting. An admissions officer befriends an alternative high school teacher, who believes he's found the son she gave up for adoption years ago. The officer and the teacher hit it off, but he has a son, she might have a son, and hilarity ensues. The whole thing felt a bit thin in places, but it held together enough to keep me engaged in the story.

It was fun seeing Tina Fey and Paul Rudd together. I like Fey, but I don't love her. She gave her typical performance here. I just feel like she's middle of the road- she has a few hilarious moments and a lot of average moments in any performance. She certainly has an everywoman quality to her, so I get why people are comfortable liking her in films. I do like Paul Rudd, and while he certainly plays second fiddle to Fey here, he has a few great moments as well. He has a line early on to his classroom the first time Fey shows up that made me laugh outline and rewind it numerous times. It's a funny line, but it becomes hilarious with Rudd's perfect delivery of it.

The supporting cast was fine, but not leveraged fully. I really like Michael Sheen, but he only plays a small, thankless role here. It felt like his talents were wasted. Lily Tomlin actually gave a great supporting performance. She's looking really, really old, but she can still act, and she had a few funny moments. I was glad to see Sonya Walger here, but I was disappointed she had nothing to do in another thankless role. The rest of the supporting cast is okay, but very few standouts.

I realize that I liked this movie more than the average moviegoer, and probably more than I should have. It certainly has some flaws- the script itself could have used an overhaul. And yet, despite its obvious flaws, the film surprised me time and time again, and that kept my attention. These kind of movies get made dozens of times every year, so we have hundreds and hundreds of films that feel very similar to this. And yet, with all that history, Admission managed to do something different, and I really appreciated that. This was an ambitious attempt that didn't quite land where it wanted, but I still enjoyed the effort.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



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