Paul Weitz’ “Admission” could have been a really good,
genuine comedy/drama about motherhood and parenting. It stars Tina Fey and Paul
Rudd, two actors capable of doing intelligent as well as authentic comedy. Unfortunately
they are let down by the movie, which goes down the conventional, contrived and
broad romantic comedy path.
Fey plays Portia Nathan who’s set up in typical rom-com
fashion. She is an admissions officer for the prestigious Princeton University.
She lives a simple and boring life. Determined and hardworking but also works
too much. She’s rigid and also bitter when it comes to children. She’s been at
her same job for sixteen years and for good reason. Admissions officers
(especially from high-falutin schools like Princeton) need to be tough and not
get emotionally attached to applicants.
Rudd plays John Pressman, a nice guy who runs a
developmental high school and wants Portia to come and check it out. Paul Rudd is all about living in the moment
and making spontaneous decisions. He likes to help people (he travels around
the world doing things like building wells in Africa) and has an adopted
Ugandan son.
So, here we have two ideal rom-com protagonists, both with
great qualities and also flaws. It’s only a matter of time before they do their
little dance and eventually fall in love, right? But then comes Jeremiah (Nat
Wolfe) a student from John’s school.
John thinks he has potential to go to Princeton, but Jeremiah doesn’t
fit the black and white definition of Princeton material. He’s incredibly smart
and well read but is also weird and doesn’t have a great transcript. To thicken
the plot, there’s a possibility that Jeremiah could be Portia’s son (we find
out that she gave up a baby when she was a teenager) and her whole world gets
turned upside down.
Now, despite the cliché-ness of that last sentence the
movie—with the addition of the Jeremiah character—if handled seriously could
have lifted the “Admission” out of its rom-com setup and inevitable finish. And
there are moments, brief flashes, where Weitz and screenwriter Karen Croner (it’s
based on a book by Jean Hanff Korelitz) try to do that, like in a scene where
Portia goes to a college party (where she sticks waaay out) to “check up on”
Jeremiah, who doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s a funny moment but also feels
really honest and sincere, it’s not just a typical rom-com type scene.
And there are other genuine and funny moments like that
sprinkled throughout. But, for the most part we get these utterly lame, artificial
attempts at broad comedy, like in a scene where Portia and John get covered in
cow placenta (don’t ask). It’s like Weitz and co. are so worried they’ll lose
the audience if they don’t throw in a joke every two minutes. They’re simply
trying too hard to be funny.
Fey is sadly hit and miss. She actually handles the serious stuff
rather well and has her moments comically; she’s especially good at creating
embarrassing situations for herself or being in situations where she tries to
do the right thing but ends up making it worse. But then, you see her in the scenes
like the cow placenta scene and think to yourself: ‘Tina, you’re better than
this, why are you subjecting yourself to this lazy nonsense?” Rudd on the other
hand is just…bland. I mean he’s likable, as always, and like Fey he handles
some of the serious stuff fairly well, but overall the script doesn’t give him
a lot to do comedy wise.
Pretty soon all hope is lost, as “Admission” settles into
rom-com movie autopilot and is doomed. The third act is languorous and
contrived. A sort of plot twist involving Jeremiah comes too late to make any
sort of impact, Weitz and Croner go for the typical “I never want to see you
again” moment between Portia and John, which is followed by the protagonists
looking glum as melancholy guitar music plays over the soundtrack. And then comes
the forced, thrown together ending that you could have called right from the
start. “Admission” had potential, but ultimately it’s a disappointment.
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