MOVIE REVIEW - Admission

Sometimes when you go to a movie you are made to expect one thing, but actually get something completely different.   That is exactly what you get with the new Tina Fey, Paul Rudd movie, Admission.

Admission is the story of Portia (Fey) who is an admissions officer at Princeton.   Her job is to evaluate all of the applications of high school seniors and decide who is "worthy" of admission to the nations number one academically ranked school.   She reunites with John (Rudd), how is an old college acquaintance from Dartmouth 16 years earlier.  He is running a new age kind of school for kids that is incredibly non-traditional in the heart of the liberal upper Northeast.   He has a very gifted student that he wants to get admitted to Princeton, and wants Portia's help.

The story then becomes a bit complicated to explain.  But out of nowhere, it seems this kid might be Portia's child she gave up for adoption while in college years earlier.  So as Portia moves on to try to make this happen for this child, she can't help but get emotionally involved in the case, and eventually with John romantically.   Portia is now revisiting her entire life.  She has been an uptight, mostly boring woman, who has settled into a life of elitism, and higher education where she was spent her life judging others, except herself.  Can she work it all out, and turn the page of her life?

First off, when you see the banner that says Tina Fey, and Paul Rudd what do you think?  You think comedy, maybe even romantic comedy. And that's what the makers want you to think it is. But truth is, it's not.  This is a dramedy.  There is some attempted humor here, but it's all up front in this movie and not really funny at all.  This really staggers out of the box.  Then it evolves into a light drama more than anything else.  Many who go to see this are going to be extremely disappointed in the fact this is not a comedy.  Oh, there are a few moments that are mildly amusing, but that's not this movies DNA.  And while were this far out, shame on them. The trailer bills this as a comedy, and it is not.

One huge problem this has is that you have to find the college admission process interesting to hold your focus.  You also have to schlog through way too many characters you really have no interest in to get to the meat of what's going on here.  And what is going on here?  What this is, is Fey looking nice, and soft delivering a lot of drab dialogue and having a very limited character. Not really her fault, just an average script.  Rudd is certainly fun enough, but his role is diminished as times goes on, and it really becomes Fey's movie.  The supporting cast is fine, there's just a couple of story lines on the side that get in the way.

When it's all said and done, this just doesn't have enough to thoroughly engage today's movie goers.  Yes, Fey and Rudd are favorites, but the basic premise is stuffy, and boring for many, and the fact that there will be no word of mouth on this because of the fact it's not funny, will kill it. 

Admission.  Not good enough to be good, not bad enough to be bad.  It just lays there.