Admission (2013)

An admissions officer (Tina Fey) at Princeton University lives a stable and uneventful life including a live in boyfriend (Michael Sheen, THE QUEEN). But her world starts unraveling, not only when her boyfriend leaves her for another woman (Sonya Walger) but when an eager Princeton applicant (Nat Wolff) may be the child she gave up for adoption years ago. ADMISSION took me off guard. I was expecting a typical romantic comedy with Fey and Paul Rudd (as a former classmate, now running an alternative high school) sparring off until the inevitable clinch and happy ending but it turned out to be more serious than that. Oh the comedy is there all right but it's not ha-ha funny. Instead it balances more serious issues like the political maneuvering of ivy league university admissions and the selfishness of parental decisions and the mark it leaves on their children. Not a great film by any means but I liked it well enough. Fey and Rudd are likable and play well off each other but it's Lily Tomlin, as Fey's uber feminist mother without any maternal feelings, who steals the movie. Directed by Paul Weitz. With Wallace Shawn, Gloria Reuben, Sarita Choudhury and Olek Krupa.