Admission (2013)

For those of you who are thinking that this film is a comedy, you would be wrong. It is more of a drama with some funny moments thrown in (although I never laughed out loud; not even once). As a matter of fact, by the time the film was over I was actually feeling a little sad. The story centers on an admissions officer for Princeton University, Portia Nathan (Tina Fey) who is responsible for combing through thousands of submission requests and evaluating who should be allowed to attend this prestigious school. On top of that, the current dean of admissions is retiring and Portia and her rival Corinne (Gloria Reuben) are both up for the job. Gearing up for her annual recruiting trip, Portia is contacted by John Pressman (Paul Rudd) to come and check out his somewhat fundamental and "earthy" school. Upon arrival John tells Portia that he thinks that one of the kids in his school is actually the child that she gave up for adoption when she was in college. Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) has been a slacker most of his life, but it turns out that he is a natural genius and was just bored in school most of the time. He gets very interested in attending Princeton and so the story begins. The film started out mildly comical, but as the story went along it became more and more serious. The two characters that did add a little light-heartedness to the film were Susannah (Lily Tomlin) who is Portia's mother and an eccentric soul. She is not much into relationships of any kind whether it is a mother/daughter or a romantic relationship. The other character that I really liked was Nelson (Travaris Meeks-Spear) who is John's adopted son who is just looking to be normal and to not go gallivanting around the globe all the time with his father. I think the cast as a whole did a really good job and the story was not boring, but I think that billing it as a comedy was the wrong way to go. The story was a lot more serious than I expected it to be, so I think that as word gets out, this film may not do as well as expected. It was not a bad film, but I am not sure that it is worth the price of a ticket. I am giving this film an amber light.