A Sad Admission

Earlier this week, I got to see a sneak preview of a movie opening tomorrow, Admission. It stars Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, and really, their two names were enough to grab my interest in seeing it. But it turns out that while the movie wasn't too bad, my lack of knowledge about it was a bad thing, in this case. My expectations were set quite wrong.

Tina Fey plays an admissions officer at Princeton, contacted by Paul Rudd's character. Rudd is the teacher of an unconventional high school senior who wants to get into Princeton, but his special circumstances mean he's going to need a leg up. Rudd has picked Fey's character to approach for help because he's learned that the prospective student is the boy she gave up for adoption 18 years ago.

I was expecting a laugh out loud comedy in this movie, and that's where my expectations weren't set up right. Still, I think it wasn't wrong to expect that. Tina Fey and Paul Rudd have both been hysterical in plenty of productions, and both have been the best things going in a couple of very bad ones. Add to them a great supporting cast, including people like Michael Sheen, Wallace Shawn, and Lily Tomlin, plus director Paul Weitz, the man behind American Pie. I figured I'd be in stitches from start to finish.

But Admissions isn't that at all. It's actually a very sentimental story. It examines the regrets Fey's character has at giving up her son, and her strained relationship with her own mother, played by Lily Tomlin. It examines the cracks forming in the relationship between Rudd's character and his adopted son. It tracks the ruins of a collapsed relationship between Fey's character and her boyfriend of 10 years, played by Michael Sheen. And while there are a few scattered laughs here and there, this clearly isn't riotous material.

All told, Admission just wasn't as entertaining as I was hoping for. You could certainly do worse, but I feel good to have caught this one for free. It's one to wait for on DVD, for sure. I give it a C+.