In Admission, Tina Fey plays Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University. Portia lives a life of seeming happiness – choosing the nation’s best young minds by day, routine nights of intellectual pursuit with her live-in boyfriend – until one by one, every element of her world starts to unravel.
First, her boyfriend Mark (Michael Sheen) leaves her for an ice-queen colleague (Sonya Walger), just as Portia’s career is poised to advance with the departure of her mentor (Wallace Shawn). If that wasn’t complicated enough, into Portia’s life walks John Pressman (Paul Rudd), the free-spirited dean of an eccentric new-age school. John comes hat in hand asking Portia to personally review the application of a student named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), a genius savant who has struggled to find his way. At first, buttoned-up Portia wants nothing to do with the kid – but as John begins to share more and more about this unique boy, Portia finds herself questioning the entire college system she’s helped perpetuate for so long.
Based on the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz, Admission is a pretty successful movie adaptation that manages to capture a good portion of the depth and complexity of its source material – which ultimately results in one strange bird of a film. A character study that’s not afraid to take its time developing its protagonist, narrative and thematic arcs, the movie is probably not what most viewers will expect – but may find pleasantly surprising, thanks in large part to the presence of Tina Fey in the central role.
The story was adapted for the screen by Karen Croner, who hasn’t had a screenwriting credit since One True Thing. Admission isn’t just a title, but rather a cornerstone term for what the story is about, thematically speaking: the idea of “letting someone in” (the same double entendre found in the film’s marketing), but also “admission” in the sense of confession; confronting the reality of self.
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