Admission (2013)

I enjoyed this movie, which is in contrast to most reviews.  My bar is lower, it turns out.  I would agree that it does not hit a home run with all the things that it brings up.  It is also not particularly funny nor is the central theme a romance, so romantic comedy, or even romantic drama is not quite right.  It is off kilter, but for me, that came off in a good way, and the chemistry between Paul Rudd and Tina Fey is good (one of my son's pointed out that if you can't have good chemistry with Paul Rudd you are doomed in the romantic comedy genre because he can muster up chemistry with everyone...except Jennifer Anniston...but that is another review all together).

Fey plays Portia, who is in a long term relationship with a very uptight English professor at Princeton where she is an admissions officer.  Shaun Wallace plays head of admissions and he is pitch perfect for a snooty Ivy League gate keeper, and Fey is not all that far behind.  She is just not all that likable at first.  Then John, played by Paul Rudd, comes to her with a high school senior who he thinks is a perfect Princeton match and he comes to her as a former Dartmouth classmate to pitch his student, Jeremiah Balakian.  Jeremiah hated school, failed all his classes, but then aced the AP exams for classes he never took and got a perfect SAT score--so he is complicated, and when Portia meets him, she is oddly charmed by him.  We go on to find out that Portia has a wacky hippie mother (Lily Tomlin) who has warped her views on intimacy and parenting.  The movie is about how Portia gets some insight into how she became the woman that she is, and how she might change into a much happier version of herself, and that is the message that I enjoyed watching.