Admission (2013)

A romantic comedy surrounding the university/college admission process…

Directed by: Paul Weitz Starring: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Nat Wolff, Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn, Michael Sheen, Gloria Reuben

Hollywood has shown us over the years that romantic comedies can be set in almost any industry from the government to the sex industry to retail. Here’s another example:

September is normally the time when young people aged 18 or over are starting university or college degrees. After all the hard work at school and obtaining the right grades and impressing the right people at the right alma mater enough to be offered a place at their institution, you are now ready start life at university/college. The admission process is over for you, but it is just about to start again for all the recruitment and admissions officers at each university or college, where they have to start recruiting new students to join the following year’s intake. Do you want to see a romantic comedy set during this process? Whether the answer is yes or no, Hollywood already has you covered. In 2013, a romantic comedy based around a college admissions officer, titled Admission, was released.

Admission was produced by Depth of Field Productions and distributed by Focus Features, the independent arm of Universal Pictures. The film was directed by Paul Weitz, who had experience in the romantic comedy genre with American Pie (1999) and About a Boy (2002). Weitz also served asone of the film’s three producers along with Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, who had previously worked on Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008) and The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), and Andrew Miano, who had also produced Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist along other Paul Weitz-directed projects American Dreamz (2006), Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) and Little Fockers (2010).

Our main character in this college-based rom-com is Portia Nathan (Tina Fey), a hard-working and dedicated admissions officer at Princeton University. Portia’s job involves touring schools to advertise Princeton to senior students and find prospective candidates for the next academic year. One day, she receives a call from John Pressman (Paul Rudd), a former classmate, who invites her to visit the Quest School, an alternative high school set on a farm. John runs the school while raising an adopted family. When visiting the Quest School, he introduces Portia to Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), a teenage prodigy who John believes would be a good fit for Princeton despite his unconventional set of qualifications. Portia is unsure about taking Jeremiah on, until she learns an important secret about him. Once Portia learns this secret, she will stop at nothing to ensure that Jeremiah is enrolled at Princeton. Also, a mutual attraction builds between Portia and John.

For a film featuring the comedic talents of Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, Admissions is a mostly bland and uninteresting romantic comedy. If the premise of university admissions didn’t get your pulses racing, then the final product certainly won’t. Tina Fey does her job well enough, even if her character design as the uptight, committed, hard-working go-getter is a long-overused cliché. Paul Rudd does provide a couple of laughs and a few smiles as optimistic nice guy principal John, as it seems to be almost impossible for Paul Rudd to be unlikeable in a comedy film. The romance arc between Portia and John seems forced and even takes a back seat for parts of the film as the other half of the plot takes over. I won’t reveal the secret that Portia learns about Jeremiah, but once you see the effect that this secret has on Portia’s character, you will think that she’s slowly losing her mind. On that point, Nat Wolff does enough as Jeremiah, not that his character exceeds beyond being merely a plot point.

A talented supporting cast, including Michael Sheen as Fey’s cheating husband and Wallace Shawn as Portia’s boss, are wasted in underwritten roles. The only supporting character who receives any kind of true development is Lily Tomlin as Portia’s hippyish mother Susannah, as the film takes on the rom-com cliché of the main character having to work out their differences of opinion with their estranged parent by the film’s conclusion.

Admission was released on 22nd March 2013. The film opened at number 5 in the U.S. box office, pulling in $6.1 million behind The Croods and Olympus Has Fallen. The film spent three weeks in the top 10, before dropping out in mid-April. In the UK, the film was in cinemas for just two weeks, grossing $52,708 to open at number 17 at the UK box office. In week 2, the film suffered a 91.7% drop in revenue to rank 34th before being pulled the following week. Admission was a minor box-office success, eventually grossing $18 million against a $13 million budget.

If I were to recommend a college-based romantic comedy, it would not be admission. If you want to experience a great rom-com in this unique sub-genre, watch 2015’s The Rewrite with About a Boy star Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei. It’s much funnier and more likeable than this dull-as-ditchwater college dropout.