ADMISSION (Paul Weitz). 107 minutes. Opens Friday (March 22). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNN
Admission begins as a Tina Fey romantic comedy. The 30 Rock creator and star plays Portia Nathan, a Princeton admissions officer whose carefully ordered life falls apart when she’s contacted by a schoolteacher (Paul Rudd) who wants her to consider his prize student (Nat Wolff), who may also be the child she gave up for adoption 18 years earlier.
A good start, right? And the presence of invaluable character actors Michael Sheen as Fey’s spineless ex and Lily Tomlin as her imperious, insistently independent mother further nudges the tone toward comedy, or at least lively satire.
But it gradually becomes clear that director Paul Weitz wants to tell a more meaningful story, and he can’t quite make it work. Like In Good Company, his 2004 workplace comedy that turned into a searching, not totally articulate drama about corporate friendships, Admission tries to straddle the broad demands of the rom-com and the weightier themes of Jean Hanff Korelitz’s novel.
I’m entirely fine with movies that want to be something more than formulaic, and both Fey and Rudd are very good at suggesting there’s a lot more to their characters than meets the eye. (Rudd, in particular, finds numerous ways to subtly imply that his character’s insistent do-goodery is a way to overcompensate for his privileged upbringing.)
But it’s difficult to swing for depth when your movie includes a scene where characters get covered in cow placenta.
