Waitlisted

Review: Admission

Everybody loves Tina Fey. It's a simple fact of life, a preexisting truth, much like the earth is round, like I should be listening in class instead of writing movie reviews, like Michael Bay (Transformers) movies will be filled with explosions. Everybody loves Tina Fey.

Fey's TV show, 30 Rock, may have been a bit too weird for some, but it is fun and quirky and most people, if not weekly viewers, at least appreciated it. And we all know she and Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) were great hosting the Golden Globes.

But Fey's experience in films is somewhat sparse and of arguably unreliable quality. Baby Mama, in which she costarred with Poehler, was decent, but a forgettable freshman headlining attempt. Date Night with Steve Carell (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone) was also a light, but typical and too-safe experience.

Fey's newest film, Admission, brings us more of the same. In the story of a motherless Princeton admissions officer who spends an unlikely amount of time getting to know the head of an alternative school and the student he wants her to admit, little happens that is unexpected, unpredictable, or really all that interesting.

Both Fey as the admissions officer and Paul Rudd (This is 40) as the school overseer are their usual, charming and witty selves. But frankly, earnest and clever repartee is not enough to carry a film, particularly one which requires considerable compensation for its dull and unimaginative script.

Admission is certainly a misstep for director Paul Weitz, whose previous work is both funnier (Little Fockers) and more dramatic (Being Flynn). It is a disappointed piece of status-quo work for a director who has seemingly been improving in his work over the past few years.

Even the supporting cast (Nat Wolff, Gloria Reuben) is relatively dull, with the exception of a very few memorable moments from Lily Tomlin, Michael Sheen, and Wallace Shawn.

You cannot help but like the film at least a little bit, again for the expected appeal of Fey and Rudd, but Admission does nothing beyond its casting to truly earn your attention or your time.

The Final Word: 1/4 - No need to ever watch it.