Plot: What’s it about?
Paul Rudd sure hasn’t had luck at the box office lately. Our Idiot Brother, Wanderlust and now Admission have all failed to bring in big numbers. Rudd is certainly a likeable actor, but he’s best served as a supporting character. He is better at playing off of other characters than he is as a leading man. Tina Fey takes the female lead here. She plays Portia Nathan, an admissions officer widely known for rejecting more applicants than she accepts. Things aren’t going so well in her life. Her boyfriend (Michael Sheen) leaves her for another professor and she’s asked by John Pressman (Paul Rudd) to take a trip. He wants her to tour a campus in New Hampshire. Pressman also has some news for Portia. He suspects that one of his students, Jeremiah Balakian (Nat Wolff) may be her son she gave up for adoption many years ago.
We never get any strong connection to these characters. Rudd and Fey have little chemistry and I never cared about the central plot involving her suspected son. Admission tries to be too many things at once. As a comedy the laughs just aren’t there. The romance angle never works either. Both, Rudd and Fey are nice, easy-going actors, but they’re wasted here in a role that asks very little of them. The Fey character also makes some very questionable choices in the second half of the film. Sure, it’s ultimately for the greater good of her son getting into a good college, but her ways of going about it are all wrong. Director Paul Weitz has made some great films including About a Boy and In Good Company, but it’s hard to see what drew him to this project. Usually with films of this sort the actors at least elevate the material and make it watchable. That isn’t the case here. Despite the 107 minute running time, it felt like an eternity. I couldn’t wait for it to end. If Paul Rudd and Tina Fey wish to continue their careers in film then they seriously need to consider stronger material than what we get here. Admission denied.
Video: How does it look?
It’s kind of odd and/or eerie when you can pretty much tell how a movie will look just based on the cover. Granted I have been and often am wrong, but no…not with Admission. Universal’s disc serves up a very nice-looking 2.40:1 AVC HD image that looks just the part. Colors are warm, detail is sharp and contrast is spot on. Truthfully there’s really nothing wrong with the way this looks, but I found a few scenes to have a tad bit more grain that I was prepared for and some scenes had just the slightest bit of softness. While certainly nothing to get in a tizzy about, Admission looked as I expected (which isn’t really a bad thing).
Audio: How does it sound?
There’s something to be said for the soundtrack on any romantic comedy. Oh, how do we know it’s a romantic comedy? Simple, again I point you to the cover. An attractive-looking duo staring into one another’s eyes means one thing – romantic comedy. Having said that, the playful DTS HD Master Audio mix leaves very little to be desired as it sounds pretty darn good. Vocals are right on the money, surrounds are used, albeit sparingly and the front speakers handle everything else the film has to offer. This is about as standard fare as it gets, folks but again it’s nothing bad in the least. It’s nothing that’ll leave an impact, either.
Supplements: What are the extras?
The only supplement here is “Early Admission” (get it?) with Rudd and Fey trying their best to make the movie sound great. It’s essentially an extended EPK. There’s another disc with a DVD of the film as well as an UltraViolet copy for your viewing pleasure.
