Movie Review - Admission

Admission (2013)

Starring Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Gloria Reuben, Wallace Shawn, Nat Wolff,  Travaris Spears, and Lily Tomlin

Directed by Paul Weitz

Admission starts out promisingly enough, but after about forty minutes, I found it nearly inconceivable that there was still over an hour to go.  Tina Fey is charming as Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton who visits a small private high school run by John Pressman (Paul Rudd) only to discover that John's prize student Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) may be the son she gave up for adoption eighteen years prior.  With Jeremiah, whose transcript contains nothing spectacular, desperate to get into Princeton, Portia finds herself in a conundrum both professionally and personally.

And, unfortunately, the problem with Admission is that this aforementioned story is dished out in its first third and not much else happens for its remainder.  There's scene after scene of attempts at humor, but they fail to present a well-rounded story.  It certainly helps that Tina Fey and Paul Rudd are both pleasant to watch onscreen either together or separately and the rest of the cast is certainly appealing, but they're left floundering throughout the entire second half of the film.  It's a shame, really, because there's an attempt here to create a somewhat "smart" comedy, but the story simply isn't enough to sustain itself over its run time.

The RyMickey Rating:  C