Admission
Universal Pictures | Release Date: March 22, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
23
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanMar 22, 2013
Admission is not especially funny. The trailer can’t seem to make up its mind. On the one hand, it looks like a satire of academia. On the other hand, it could be a gentle rom-com. In truth, it’s neither. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMar 21, 2013
The result is a picture curiously yet intriguingly at odds with itself: One moment is edgy, the next is not; the cast is terrific, the direction is not; here it’s satirically sharp, there it’s sloppily sentimental; now we’re happily engaged, then we’re cruelly dumped. Some films are electric – Admission settles for alternating current. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinMar 20, 2013
Admission ultimately can’t quite figure out what kind of a film it wants to be, so like a lot of promising but unfocused contenders, it never quite lives up to its potential. But there’s value to be found in its meandering. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 20, 2013
Admission, a likably breezy campus movie directed by Paul Weitz (About a Boy), is blissfully non-insulting. Read full review
65
NPRElla TaylorMar 21, 2013
Where "About a Boy" was both funny and wise about urban alienation, Admission settles for skin deep. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 22, 2013
Largely because of its engaging cast, Admission is an amiable, but only slightly-above-average, comic romp. Read full review
63
New York PostLou LumenickMar 21, 2013
She’s (Fey) so good that — up to a point — you can ignore Paul Weitz’ erratic direction and a patchy script, both of which clumsily handle shifts between comedy and drama. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 21, 2013
My evaluation is to wait-list Admission and catch it when it reaches the less demanding platform of home video. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 21, 2013
Admission works in stops and starts. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 21, 2013
Cheerful, skittish entertainment that never takes its subject seriously enough. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 21, 2013
There's a good movie in this story. The one that got made is roughly half-good. Read full review
63
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMar 19, 2013
Fey plays this inner-outer conflict well. But at her most wide-eyed and vulnerable, she still has trouble making a romance credible, even with Rudd, edgy comedy’s puppy dog of a leading man. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensMar 22, 2013
I found myself curiously willing to overlook Admission’s weaknesses, or even to reinterpret them as strengths — couldn’t those inconclusive endings be seen as a refreshingly un-rom-com-like embrace of life’s open-endedness and complexity? Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanMar 21, 2013
Lily Tomlin gives the movie a boost as Portia's radical feminist mother, who would hate this movie. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 21, 2013
Everybody in Admission is funny - Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn - but they're not funny in Admission. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMar 21, 2013
Admission is one film you may not want to get into. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 21, 2013
Admission is pleasant enough. Even when off a bit, the talent of the cast assures that. But it’s still a disappointment. You might say it, ahem, doesn’t make the grade. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 21, 2013
The movie’s just too boring and middlebrow. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMar 21, 2013
Mr. Weitz lines up a target placed at the explosive intersection of class, race, region and every other source of societal anguish, and then does not so much miss as aim in another direction — or several — letting fly a volley of darts that land as lightly as badminton birdies. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 21, 2013
I'd see Tina Fey and Paul Rudd in anything, but this is pushing it. Admission is so slight that a breeze could flatten it. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 20, 2013
Admission has some sublime moments, most of them involving Fey and Rudd dancing around their inevitable romance. The problem is in the foundation. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMar 20, 2013
Never finding its right tone, Admission uncomfortably founders between the story’s comic and dramatic aspects and leaves behind a lumpy residue that tars its likable leads. Read full review
50
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekMar 19, 2013
Weitz, an openhearted director if not always a precise one, can't bring himself to whet the knives. Only Fey drills to the center of what Admission might have been—her performance has more layers of emotion than the picture does. Read full review
50
Film.comWilliam GossMar 6, 2013
Actions do have their consequences, though, and Weitz doesn’t try to end things too tidily for their own good. Were only that he had succeeded in committing to one of those films over the other, then Admission might have been this year’s “Liberal Arts” rather than this year’s “Smart People.” Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMar 6, 2013
Deftly playing Tina Fey's feminist-icon mother, Lily Tomlin all but steals Admission, a knowing but uneven comedy about the neuroticism of the college-admission process on both sides of the equation. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 6, 2013
The comedy feels forced as Fey works overtime to insert unnecessary zingers at the tail of every scene. If the cast weren’t so endearing, her actions could easily sour an audience on the whole experience, and Admission digs itself a hole only an ensemble this appealing can escape. Read full review
42
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanMar 27, 2013
Doris Day will be 89 in two weeks, which makes her exactly half a century too old to play the lead in Admission. That’s a pity, as perhaps only she could have done it justice – if it had been made in 1958. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 22, 2013
Granted, this is not automatic laugh-riot material, nor should it be, but didn’t Fey recognize how hackneyed it all is? Does being a movie star mean blanding out everything that makes you special? Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 15, 2013
The comic material really isn't there, and the plot transitions feel forced and uncomfortable. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyJun 15, 2013
The movie subverts expectations, and not in a good way, by seeming in a dither about its own identity. The romance is by the by, the comedy as sparse as can be. We’re left with a curious non-film about the pitfalls of higher education assessment. Odd. Read full review
40
EmpireJames WhiteJun 10, 2013
Occasionally charming but mostly bland fare from Weitz, despite the reliable cast. About A Boy remains the best showcase of his talents. Read full review
40
Total FilmKen McIntyreJun 9, 2013
These truly are dark and terrible times if we are forced to accept the elitist problems of an Ivy League college admissions officer as shameless fodder for a romcom. Read full review
40
TimeMary PolsMar 21, 2013
While Admission remains the story of a woman who comes to question her past choices and jeopardize her career, the movie version is lighter, fluffier and dramatically inert. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfMar 19, 2013
Admission’s comedy has walls built around it; director Paul Weitz (About a Boy), normally a softener of harsh edges, might have been stymied by Fey’s snappy persona. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 18, 2013
That first half of Admission is a lot for an actress to overcome. It’s not just very bad, it’s very fast, as if someone had overwound the metronome. Fairly naturalistic lines are delivered at the pace of screwball zingers — which stubbornly refuse to zing. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineMar 11, 2013
The estrogenic elements prove widely ineffectual, but they're just pieces of this overlong, overloaded misfire whose double-entendre title ultimately just goads the jaded viewer to admit defeat. Read full review
33
The PlaylistGabe ToroMar 19, 2013
It’s as if Weitz knows he’s got a corpse of a film on his hands -- never trust a movie when it feels as though you can see the director clasping the defibrillator. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 21, 2013
Nobody doesn't like Tina Fey, and anyone aware of her starring role in Admission will be wishing her well. But wishing won't make this dramedy any less dreary than it is. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMar 21, 2013
The bad news about Admission is that this thin envelope of a comedy checks all the boxes for being a phoned-in, phony, padded rom-com. Read full review
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