Paul Weitz’s Admission tells the story of one Portia Nathan (Tina Fey), a college admissions officer at the ultra-prestigious Princeton University. Each year, her job requires her to cut down a field of thousands upon thousands of applicants into a small matriculating class just a fraction of the size. And it requires her to reduce multi-faceted, multi-talented, and whole human beings into an academic spreadsheet representing their abilities to write and calculate and remain diverse in the community, but not much else. But Portia is a veteran of the admissions department, primarily due to her seeing the best in this destructive process that is the propensity for genuine talent to not only emerge but flourish at Princeton. Her world and her perspectives are quickly and drastically warped when she discovers a uniquely educated young man named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) who lacks only the numbers on paper to enter the university and who may be her long-lost son she put up for adoption years ago.
Admission filled me with optimism at first. It’s opening introduces Portia, a rather likable woman in an abhorrently disliked industry. You can’t help but root for her initially. She sticks to her guns and delivers speech after lecture after monologue to enterprising young applicants, all the while remaining so upbeat and genuine as only Fey can provide through her grounded, sensible humor. When she encounters her first great obstacle, a pseudo-vocational/gifted school run by the charming, if uneven John Pressman (Paul Rudd), it feels like a great end to a first act. But the film doesn’t maintain its composure, much like Fey’s character Portia can’t maintain composure when she learns of Jeremiah’s existence and possible connection to her. Ms. Nathan turns into a caricature — a cartoon — and really participates in things not in her best interest, such as bringing Jeremiah a toothbrush when he stays overnight to visit Princeton or messing with other tour groups.
Some of the plot points after the initial revelation feel undeniably forced and don’t fit into the film at all. There’s a half-jokey, half-sad plotline in which Portia’s live-in boyfriend played by Michael Sheen abandons her for the woman who played Penny “Not-Penny’s-Boat” Widmore on LOST. The segments are awkward, the emotions nailed into your face with obviousness, and the pratfall-style jokes fall effortlessly flat. Weitz and company have crammed in a mother-daughter plot which should reflect and refract the primary story revolving around Jeremiah, yet it again misses the mark. Fey and Lily Tomlin go at it in typical dueling moms fashion, but it never amounts to anything. The one word I kept coming up with during my viewing was “unearned.” These scenes are inserted because they’re standard, but they’re not earned by the characters. It’s as if they said, “Okay, now Portia has to cry with her mom here. Now she has to sleep with the love interest here” and never put any thought into whether or not Fey’s Portia Nathan would actually act this way. The emotions and story beats and the developments are simply unearned through this wayward script. 
All of this leads to an ending which is not just unsatisfying, but also kind of depressing for viewers.
Speaking of the script, it’d be difficult to argue that it wasn’t tailor-made for Fey and Rudd. They truly disappear into their characters and the realistic humor is where both actors shine. And that’s where it stops. Writer Karen Croner forgot to create useful, real secondary characters. Masterful character actor Wallace Shawn is simply the Textbook Boss Who Needs a Successor. ER veteran Gloria Reuben is the Bitchy Rival Co-Worker. The most heinous crime is the lack of screen-time for Wolff’s Jeremiah Balakian A.K.A. the pivotal character in the movie. Wolff is quite good and holds his ground against both Fey and Rudd, but his unique skills both in the frame of the story and on set are driven into the background as noise for the main protagonists to riff on and dance around.
As far as technical achievements go, there’s something to be said for the efficient, yet attractive camerawork. With permission to film at Princeton alongside various upstate New York locales, the filmmakers capture a pretty pleasant East Coast scene. The editing, on the other hand, is noticeable for the opposite reason. Due to both the bloated plot and decisions in the cutting room, the movie runs a bit too long and feels that way.
Admission falls into the same category as the last Paul Weitz film I saw, Being Flynn. It features an inspiring concept that lays the groundwork for a meaningful film. With that said, it just feels like its missing too many things, including a central thread. The lead actors are great and restore some life into the scenes, but lazy script choices, misguided directing, and a strange and unfitting downer ending send this to mediocrity.
Rating: Solid lead acting and a neat concept are squandered in Admission by a rough script, diminishing comedic returns, and an odd thematic development at the conclusion. (4/10)
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