| Admission | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Paul Weitz |
| Written by | Karen Croner |
| Based on | Admission byJean Hanff Korelitz |
| Produced by | Paul Weitz Kerry Kohansky-Roberts Andrew Miano |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Declan Quinn |
| Edited by | Joan Sobel |
| Music by | Stephen Trask |
Production company | Depth of Field |
| Distributed by | Focus Features |
Release date |
|
Running time | 108 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $13 million[2] |
| Box office | $18.6 million[3] |
Admission is a 2013 Americanromanticcomedy-drama film directed byPaul Weitz and starringTina Fey andPaul Rudd. The film was released in the United States and Canada on March 22, 2013.[4][5][6][7] It is an adaptation ofJean Hanff Korelitz's 2009 novel of the same name.
Straight-lacedPrinceton UniversityAdmissions Officer Portia Nathan has vast experience in the coaching, consoling, and criticism involved in Princeton's admission process.
Portia is caught off guard while making a recruiting visit to the Quest School, analternative high school overseen by her former college classmate, the free-wheeling John Pressman. John teaches while raising Nelson, his pre-teen adopted son. After exposing Portia to outspoken Quest students' impressions of college, he takes her to meet the rather unconventional Jeremiah, achild prodigy.
Back on campus, Portia's longtime boyfriend Mark breaks up with her after impregnating a "Virginia Woolf scholar" named Helen. After an awkward romantic attraction to Pressman, she arranges for Jeremiah to visit Princeton, where she and a colleague, Corinne, are rivals to succeed the soon-to-retire Dean of Admissions.
Portia long ago had a secret pregnancy, putting the baby up for adoption, and is shown a birth certificate by Pressman proving that Jeremiah is hers. Although he is brilliant, Jeremiah's miserabletranscript results in his being deemed unfit to attend Princeton. Portia, in an act that greatly endangers her position, sneaks into the office at night and changes Jeremiah's rejection to an offer for admission, knowing that – if caught – the Dean of Admissions can not rescind Jeremiah's already submitted acceptance, in order to avoid creating a scandal for Princeton's admissions system. While this is true, the Dean does demand her resignation when her actions are found out.
Later, when revealing to Jeremiah that she is his biological mother, she finds out that his photocopied birth certificate has a faded imperceptible digit changing his hour of birth, and that he has already located his actual biological mother. Portia appears at the adoption agency, trying to locate her son, where she describes her life with a different perspective. When asked how would she feel to meet her actual child, she replies that she would feel "nervous, but lucky".
In the end, now dating Pressman, she receives a letter about her son, which says he is not ready to meet her yet. Pressman points out to her that she is on the waitlist "... and that's not so bad."
The film was directed byPaul Weitz, known for his work onAbout a Boy, and was based on the novel of the same name byJean Hanff Korelitz. The film was shot at thePrinceton University campus,Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY, and atManhattanville College in Purchase, New York.[8] A trailer for the film was released on November 20, 2012.[9] The film was released on March 22, 2013.Admission was the first major motion picture to useRushTera forpost-production collaboration.
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 37% of 154 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Admission has a pair of immensely likable leads in Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, but it wastes them on a contrived (and clumsily directed) screenplay."[10]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 48 out of 100, based on 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[11]
