Admission

Let’s take two of the most popular comedic actors today and put them in a movie that doesn’t really try to be funny. That is a quote from no one. But it could be in relation to Admission. The film stars Tina Fey as a by the book Princeton admissions officer. After being contacted by the head of a school (Paul Rudd) that has an interested student, (Nat Wolff) she learns the student may be her son that she gave up for adoption in college. The plot mainly focuses on Fey’s character being forced out of her comfort zone. But it isn’t all that exciting.

When I say the film isn’t funny, I think I laughed twice. It’s not a traditional comedy in that sense. But I would describe it as nice or happy, I’d even throw in a sweet. But that definitely means Fey and Rudd are underutilized. Rudd has been known to make movies like this before so I guess they’re just branching out. Wolff and Lily Tomlin, who plays Fey’s character’s mother, do well in their supporting roles. Tomlin is far from likeable but it’s an interesting performance for the relatively minor role.

Admission is not a stand-out movie because of its lack of memorable moments. Both Fey and Rudd already have a bunch of higher-profile films we can think of them for. The script is well-written, developing with a surprising number of twists and turns for a “sweet” movie. Fey definitely has star power carrying the film’s entertainment value firmly on her shoulders. With that being said, the movie is definitely entertaining. The difficult part was getting into the theater after its trailers were obviously showing the funniest moments. Let’s get this pair of jokers back together soon though. F-udd works well together. That’s my Tom-Kat style nickname for Fey and Rudd. Fudd.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.