Lily Tomlin bursts through the ho-hum safe and silly bromides in Admission as the comedy legend she is. Playing the hippie/feminist mom of Tina Fey’s main character, an admissions officer at Princeton, Tomlin helps rescue a a film that often has trouble walking and chewing gum simultaneously.
The film splits itself between satirical comedy and heartfelt drama. The funny half does a decent job going inside the politics and anxieties of the college admissions process. The other half goes over the battles between personal and career concerns of a contemporary female professional. While Fey can aptly slide back and forth between styles, the film’s screenplay offers as many softballs as bon mots. Also central to the plot are the vagaries brought on by adoption, as if Admission didn’t already have enough on is plate.
How good is Fey? Bouncing off a steady Paul Rudd, who plays a teacher at an alternative high school, she holds sway in keeping our interest. It helps when the likes of Wallace Shawn plays another foil to Fey–that of a retiring admissions director, eager to soon choose between Fey and a rival to be his successor. Shawn can work the eyebrows like no other actor and I’d be talking about him more of Tomlin weren’t in the film. She’s so good even her occasionally drippy and maudlin dialogue hardly gets in the way.
As far as plot, let’s just say Rudd has a surprise up his sleeve once he convinces Fey to visit his school. As a result her steely resolve to stay unemotional as a final arbiter of who gets in the most prestigious American college becomes, well, compromised. A scene where the admissions panel goes through the process of selecting its applicants is worth the price of admission here. If you’re a Princeton grad, get ready to wince at the film’s stereotyping. One thing that probably rings true is Wallace freaking out when his college loses the prestigious Number One ranking in the US News & World Report College Guide.
Did I mention Lily Tomlin is really good here?
2.5 You Won’t Believe How Hard it is To Get Into Princetons (out of 5)