My wife and I LOVED this movie. Charming, charming, charming. I don't usually disagree vehemently with the roster of professional critics, but with this movie, I am baffled by the low scores. Paul Rudd and Tina Fey are wonderful, the script is delightful, and puts the viewer a little off balance, keeping the surprise element always in play. We don't like predictable scripts, and this was far from it; two original characters, who travel a wonderfully circuitous path toward the "happy ending." This movie was one of our favorites of the year. We're so tired of the mega-violent and teen-angst flicks that Hollywood is perpetually foisting on the public. It was so refreshing to go to the movies and laugh, smile, empathize, and simply dream along with the lead characters. This review wouldn't be complete without a tip of the hat to Lily Tomlin, who puts in a stellar performance, playing Tina Fey's stridently feminist author mother. Wonderful! Please go see this movie, and take your friends and family. You will be thankful that you did.… Expand

What can be said about a perfectly charming movie that the critics got so terribly wrong? It's a story with great heart and humor, one that hits all the right notes, including strong performances from Fey and Rudd and Tomlin as well as the rest of the supporting cast members. Finally a movie without explicit sex, bathroom humor, endless profanity, and graphic violence—a really good romantitic comedy that deal with matters of the heart.… Expand

We liked the movie but didn't LOVE it... A sweet story with irony & comedy blended well. My wife was sad to see it end. Paul Rudd & Tina Fey have good chemistry. And why do they require 150 characters??

The movie's title has several meanings and that's part of the problem. Too much earnest message and not enuff laffs. Tina Fey plays an admissions officer at Princeton, who is solicited by a teacher (Paul Rudd) to consider a special student. Fey is the comic core of this film. When she's being awkward, she's funny. The emotional stuff…not so much. I'm a big fan of Rudd, but this isn't one o of his most charming performances. Overall, there are laughs, but the leanings toward heartfelt dilute the comedy.… Expand

I think the Metascore is about right on for this one. I like Paul Rudd and Tina Fey is solid, but the writing/editing of this story needed tightening up. The end is awkward, the crisis is mishandled, and the subject matter overall getting a kid into Princeton is just not quite interesting enough to form the backbone of a feature film at least the way it's written here. Lilly Tomlin does a nice job in a very small role.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I just want to start off by saying that, if you can get me to dislike a movie that Tina Fey stars in, you’ve really, really done something wrong. (Honestly, with me being completely objective here; she deserved a much better film for the performance she gave. It’s a shame.)

The film starts off with Tina as “Portia”, an uptight admissions officer at Princeton, who also happens to be in an unhappy relationship with Wesley Snipes (seriously, the character IS Wesley Snipes) who thinks of her as a faithful companion and nothing more (multiple unfunny dog jokes are made). He’s unbearable and once the storyline inevitably separates the two of them so she can find her other, equally as annoying “love” in Paul Rudd, it irritatingly feels the need to make him pop up randomly at the end of almost every great dramatic scene Tina has to ruin them with an unfunny recurring gag. (Side note, he leaves with Penny from LOST. It was kinda cool seeing her, although I was disappointed by the lack of anyone shouting “brotha!” in her proximity.)

Eventually Portia meets Paul Rudd’s character, a pretentious with a *gasp!* black kid and a need to travel (so quirky!) who brings her out to his hipster alternative school to be ridiculed by his students as a sadist who represents Princeton, AKA the education system, AKA the establishment, AKA something for a bunch of idiot teens to complain about. The whole scene is unbearable, and from that point on it’s almost impossible to feel for the guy. Oh, and he thinks his supposed prodigy of a student (the kid from The Naked Brothers Band) is her son she gave up for adoption as a teen, and feels for some reason that it’s his job to get them together. The whole thing is a little ridiculous, but with better direction and dialogue, it could’ve worked. Sadly, it’s all poorly shot and amateurishly edited, something not even Tina Fey can save a movie from.

All that withstanding, it’s not terrible. The look into the admissions process is actually fascinating and could’ve made for a great movie. There were a couple of good scenes (one including some fantastic work by Tina, whose performance in this was absolutely one befitting a much better film), and you do care for some of these characters, especially Portia, but that’s about it. It was all over the place tonally, and I mean ALL over the place. The movie has no idea whether it supports the admissions process or wants to challenge the standards of approval and it’s comedy elements seemed forced while the dramatic scenes that weren’t saved by Tina or Lily Tomlin (who was also great in this) are contrived and ludicrous. In the end, I think this should’ve been a pure drama with a lot of the excess plot trimmed off to make a much tighter movie. It could’ve worked. End the end, yes, I’ll end up purchasing this to support Tina, but I know for a fact I’ll never, ever watch it again. Well… I might, but only to see Tina cry like a pro.… Expand

By a process of elimination--no desire to see “Jurassic Park in 3D”, “Evil Dead” or “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” we were left with “Admission”. I am a Paul Rudd fan, more about him later, but I publicly admit I am not familiar with Tina Fey. I stopped watching “SNL” years ago though I did catch her clever Palin imitation, I may have watched “30 Rock” here and there for a total of 30 minutes and total of 30 minutes and I did watch the Golden Globes. I did see her in “Date Night” but my mind has blanked it out. It being Friday, movie day, “Admission” it was.

“Admission” is an easy going, pleasant forgettable movie. Whether it is suppose to be a romantic comedy between Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, and there is very little comedy while they have no romantic spark between them, instead coming across as brother and sister or good friends or it is suppose to be a satirical look at someone who holds the power of whether a person does or doesn’t get into Princeton, it fails all around. Tina Fey is a pretty woman at times while a minute later can look ordinary.

I am a big fan of Paul Rudd and just a few years ago looked at him as a ‘cutie’, a funny actor and someone who could be ‘the boy next door’ (if only LOL!) He has made many movies and doesn’t fear playing losers but of his movies, maybe 3 have been hits, with one due to him. He comes across warm in “Admission” as a father who adopts a Black boy and mentors a talented boy named Jeremiah while running a new school that sounds like one from the ‘60s. Rudd needs that one film that will break his competent acting but put him in the A group of stars where he belongs. And, Paul, please trim that head of hair!

The script by Karen Croner covers too many agendas not giving importance to any of them. The director, Paul Weitz, has a good cast of supporting players like Michael Sheen as Tina’s long time companion, Wallace Shawn as her boss, Gloria Reuben as her work competitor but of all it is Lily Tomlin as her mother that steals every scene she is in and runs away with the movie. The main problem is that her role isn’t big enough. It is time a producer hires Jane Wagner to write a movie built around Tomlin’s many talents or, just as good a film with Tomlin and Fey as Mother and Daughter, who are quite believable in this film in those roles.

Hopefully Tina Fey will make a movie that will be as strong as her “SNL” and “30 Rock” writing and acting that has proven how talented she has been.… Expand

Fay and Rudd were two good elements in Admission but it seems like director Paul Weitz has lost his taste in making films. The actors were solid and great in types of chemistry but the story didn't excite or convince me of watching it again. The movie's main elements were great but as the plot thickens the movie startes to bore rather than laugh, the jokes weren't funny and the acting was so so.

It had it's humorous and entertaining moments, but there were not enough of them. It starts out to be decent, then it kind of loses your attention as you start wondering when it's gonna end and you get bored. Let's face it, the movie had no point in being made and I have no idea why it was.