Admission is a
heartwarming yet comedic look at the insanity that is the Ivy League university
admissions process. Depicting the best of the best all competing for a desk at
the number one university in America, and the crazy hoops they go through, high
school seniors will relate to the back bending (literally) applicants shown
throughout the movie. Yet somehow, amidst all the clever jokes and light
mockery of the world of Ivy League schools, director Paul Weiss (About a Boy)
manages to tell an unexpected and emotional back-story about a mother looking
for the son she never knew.
Tina Fey (Mean Girls, 30 Rock) plays Portia
Nathan, a no-nonsense, traditional admissions officer at Princeton University.
She’s up for a huge promotion, has a perfect “simple” life, and is perfectly
content with stagnant, consistent life. Enter John Pressman (Paul Rudd, Dinner for Schmuchs), a “single dad,
traveling the world with his kid doing good” (which of course he has screen
printed on a t-shirt) and a teacher at a newly established alternative high
school. He brings Princeton to his school specifically for self-proclaimed
autodidactic (he teaches himself by reading books constantly) Jeremiah Balakian
(Nat Wolff.) John believes Jeremiah to be the son that Portia gave up for
adoption years ago. Soon, Portia finds herself going against the strict rules
of Princeton admission, marking a boy with a 1.3 GPA as high-consider to the
number one school in America. 
While it’s no Mean Girls, this hilarious look at the
ruthlessness of Ivy League parents blends together very well with a mother’s
search for not only her son, but her son’s well being. I am of course a huge
Tina Fey fan, and contrary to a few online reviews, didn’t feel like the film dragged.
Based on the novel of the same name by Jean
Hanff Korelitz, Admission is
definitely a movie to at the very least wait-list.
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