3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for occasional profanity and mild sexual candor
By Derrick Bang
Paul Weitz obviously courts
variety; his writing and directing résumé includes everything from dumb comedy
(American Pie, Little Fockers) and impudent horror (Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant) to the heartfelt
relationship dramedy of About a Boy.
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| Admissions officer Portia (Tina Fey) can't understand why John (Paul Rudd, right) is so enthusiastic about getting Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) into Princeton; as far as she can tell, this young man — although certainly personable — just isn't university material, let alone Princeton material. But she's about to learn a detail that will seriously compromise her objectivity. |
His newest film, Admission, belongs in the latter’s
company; its frequently whimsical, romantic-comedy trappings are blended with
some sharp social commentary about the lengths to which parents and students
will go, to ensure entry to an appropriately prestigious university.
That’s a delicate balance to
maintain, and for the most part scripter Karen Croner succeeds; we’re never
quite sure whether it’s appropriate to root for what the central characters
seem to want, in this adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz’s perceptive novel.
Even well-motivated actions have unfortunate consequences, and one’s past has a
way of revealing that an apparently “comfortable” life may be little more than
a façade.
Admission also is a big-screen starring
vehicle for Tiny Fey, who needs a solid next step in a career that has been
dominated, until recently, by her all-consuming involvement with television’s 30 Rock. Fey is smart, savvy and sharp:
an all-around talent who hasn’t always been served well by her occasional trips
to the big screen. She was ill-used in trivial fluff such as Date Night and The Invention of Lying, and her more successful presence in Baby Mama had just as much to do with
co-star (and frequent cohort) Amy Poehler.
In a nutshell, then, Fey could
use a few starring roles that grant her characters with the all-essential blend
of intelligence, comic impulsiveness and vulnerability that has made 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon such a delight for
so many years. Weitz and Croner come close to granting her the necessary
formula in Admission, although Fey’s
character here is just a bit too much the helpless victim for my taste. But
that’s a personal judgment call, and likely not enough of an issue to bother most
viewers.
Portia Nathan (Fey) is an
admissions officer at Princeton University, one of the dozen or so
“gatekeepers” who evaluate thousands of applicants every spring, and then
decide which anxious high school seniors will win entry within these Ivy League
walls.
Korelitz is a former part-time
application reader for Princeton, so if this aspect of Weitz’s film has the
queasy, casually cruel tone of reality, it’s no accident. Korelitz knows the
territory, and Croner has done her best to replicate the impossible necessity
of such a job: of the need to choose between this gymnast with multiple
extracurricular activities, or that impassioned scholar with an aptitude for
different languages.
Korelitz’s book employs a
narrative device that allows us to eavesdrop on various application essays;
Weitz and Croner replicate that gimmick here by having Portia imagine these
various young hopefuls standing in front of her, as they eloquently argue their
own merits ... only to drop through a hidden trap door and vanish forever, as
she regretfully discards yet another fat orange folder.
