Admission

In the featherweight comic drama Admission, Tina Fey plays Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton University.  A steadfast, intelligent, independent and motherless woman who is a part of the team of officials you decide the fates of young men and women in hopes of entering higher education at one of the most illustrious campuses this country has to offer.  Portia, a stickler for details and perhaps a tad anal retentive, is still in the very traditional sense a Tina Fey role, what with her warmly infused sense of irony, awkward stumbling of well versed words and hidden radiance and hotness under her conservative attire.  Fey radiates a simultaneous intelligence and exasperation that's ever gracious and nearly always welcome.  It's somewhat unfortunate that Admission, directed by Paul Weitz, inhabits Fey by trying to keep Portia down so much of the time.  In the sense that a strong independent and successfully career-minded woman, even in the finicky sociopolitical climate of 2013, still must be burdened and bridled by the archaic standard of having it all.  On the onset Admission is not too much unlike a star vehicle that Katharine Hepburn might have played many moons ago-- that of a savvy and sharp woman who must be brought down a few pegs in the nature of seeming "womanly" and thus, appealing.

It's a shame because Fey is absolutely appealing, whether lampooning Sarah Palin or shading the absurdities of singleton Liz Lemon, and furthermore she is appealing here, adroitly shading Portia with a reserve fitted around a freak flag desperate to shine through.  Admission gives Fey the most "dramatic" part she's ever played, perhaps suggesting, albeit subtly, that if that was a direction she wanted to turn to, Fey, the actor not the comic, might rise to that occasion someday.  Weitz and screenwriter Karen Croner (adapting the novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz) sod the edges of that drama in favor of a over-saturated film, one that's stuffed a bit too much, and nourished a bit too little.  The broader comic moments hit bigger, namely because the cast includes some of the brightest actors working, all of whom have a knowing sense on how to sell the jokes and gags no matter what.  For the reason that Admission tries to be too much, it takes away the slight pleasures that bring the whole film to a soft landing to begin with.

Firstly, it's presented as a lightly satiric jab at the admission process itself, an anarchic selection of pedigree, academics and social awareness.  It's a pageant that Portia thrives on, even as she slinks by during campus tours, and stridently advices would-be candidates to just, "be themselves."  There's even some friendly caddishness backstage as dueling admission officers Portia and Corinne (played by a wonderful, if under-utilized Gloria Reuben) compete for the affections of boss Clarence (Wallace Shawn) in the hopes of usurping his job.  A novel and refreshing take on false sisterhood in the attempts of rising above advances Admission a smidgeon, if only the parting shots.  This however is but lowest of priorities as the gradually convoluted television-ready plot contrivances start to top one another.

Secondly, the film is a romantic comedy.  This becomes apparent when Good Samaritan John Pressman (Paul Rudd) makes a plea to Portia to visit his progressive, unorthodox school in the hopes of finding Princetonian potential in one of his prodigal soon-to-be graduates-- a shaggy, haired awkwardly groomed book worm named Jeremiah (Nat Wolff.)  From the start of the meet-cute shenanigans of the pleasingly matched Fey and Rudd, it seems a given that the two will give it a go, especially since John is a noble, hippie who circulates the globe healing those in need; he even adopted a young Ugandan boy.

But first a bit of feminine rampaging must occur as Portia is involved with the selfish lout of an English professor (played to the hilt by Michael Sheen, who, by the way, once played an ill-fitted suitor to Liz Lemon)-- the film gets a lot better once he's cleared away, and Portia realizes both her freak flag and becomes more "womanly." Admission has a strange view of it's leading lady, but again it must be stressed that even the fickle sexual politicizing are soothed by Fey, and especially more so by the entrance of her mother, Susannah, a spirited feminist and novelist played by a luminous and stingingly insightful Lily Tomlin.  One almost wishes that Weitz had diverged from the text completely and just ran off with the movie as a mother-daughter project for Tina Fey and Lily Tomlin.  Their scenes have a bite, a fire and a spark that's too unsteady for the easy-listening refinement that Admission is going for.

I bring up Susannah because the third prong of Admission is that of motherhood.  The twist of the film-- not so much because it's revealed in the trailer for gosh darnit, and well, not a particularly novel twist in its own right-- is that Jeremiah, the odd young man with Ivy league potential, if not breeding, may or may not be the child that Portia gave up for adoption sixteen years prior.  And while this gesture, like all of the rest is all pleasant in going down, there is a big strike for the first and the third plot threads of Admission that asks, in the films most dramatic scene, if a hard broiled woman like Portia would vouch for the merits of admission to a case like Jeremiah without the hint of parentage?  It's not the most compelling question, nor a particularly strong reason to see a film like Admission, but there's a sense that the filmmakers were perhaps a little too afraid of a really strong woman to deal with as reason alone.  C+ 

This is 40

Leslie Mann, wife of Judd Apatow, is nearly extraordinary in This is 40, a peaks and valleys scenes from a marriage comedy-drama.  Funny, frank, alluring and earthy, her character, Debbie, is the easiest, yet most complicated aspect of Apatow's latest.  The startling thing-- a bit more telling coming off the breakaway woman power, Apatow-backed Bridesmaids, is that for the first time in one of the filmmakers own features, a woman is granted the freedom, luxury and balls to be just as dirty and messed up as her male counterparts.  For some of the flack Mr. Apatow has received since his style and humor became a brand name, some of which valid or not, verging on the misogynistic or homophobic, he has always been an adept showman and capturing real world frustrations and awkwardness and tenderly allowing the audience to both freely laugh at and with his characters.  At his strongest, he's achieved catharsis through humiliation, at his weakest, he's appeared a tad self-serious and perhaps overly pompous.  This is 40, his fourth feature film, travels the gambit so to speak from the highs of The 40-Year Virgin to the dragging, lost in translation mixture of thematic material in his last offering, Funny People.  Mann, thankfully, is the saving grace, tenderly imbuing womanly grace and a comedians gift of the absurd, settling the film as it travels a something interminably long running length exceeding two hours.

Billed as a "sort of sequel" to Apatow's 2007's hit Knocked Up, we revisit characters Pete and Debbie (Paul Rudd and Mann) for the contentious week of their lives as both are setting to turn the big 4-0.  Both react to their growing pains in different ways.  She prefers to lie about her age, sneaking cigarettes in between fights with her husband and latching plans to better her and family's life for the better-- rid of junk food and electronics.  Pete is more content sneaking his iPad in the bathroom and sneaking cupcakes when no one's around.  It proves a family affair as Apatow and Mann's own children Maude and Iris continue their roles in Knocked Up as the couples children, themselves experiencing their own growing pains.  One of the more affable and frustrating to This is 40 is that in many ways Apatow presents his film both as family album and perhaps free therapy.  Many of his film regulars-- Jason Segal, Charlyne Yi, and Bridesmaids alum Melissa McCarthy, Chris O'Dowd and Annie Mumolo, as does the Apatow-produced Girls phenom Lena Dunham stop by to say hello, while the marital strife-- the more engaging material-- floats in between.  There's a nice caveat of Apatow that he goes out of his way to keep gainful employment to the talent he admires, but there really needed to be some trimming to This is 40, which verges on over-indulgence from time to time.

Pity, since the relationship between Pete and Debbie is full of fine, raw material.  It helps that Rudd and Mann have such a warm, flowing chemistry to one another.  And it helps even more that there's a genuine love story at their center-- they're just at odds on how to live with one another and continue to like each other.  There's a few typical movie screen battles, over sex and money and work and their own messed up parental figures-- John Lithgow plays Debbie's absentee father and a delicious Albert Brooks plays Pete's mooching mensch of a pop-- but there's a finely details pathos in their battle of words.  While This is 40 is entirely laugh out loud, it's is amusing more times than not, and thankfully, isn't dragged down by an overwrought cloud of self seriousness of which plagued Funny People; Apatow has always been best at freely associative banter, hidden behind a shield of self-doubt.

And that brings me back to Mann, who is totally in control of the film from the first take.  She readily exposes her less than attractive characteristics and rides the film in many ways feels like a valentine to her.  Whether in exposing sequences that reveal Debbie's insecurity of her age (presented to the hilt in an awkward exchange at the gynecologists office), rage over Pete's waning affection, efforts to control her family, or frolicking in a silly nighttime excursion with Desi (Megan Fox), the hottie she employs at her small boutique shop, Mann maneuvers the jokes and the pathos with ease.  The best exchange in the entire film is when Debbie and Pete sojourn to a short, pot-fueled holiday where they lovingly express how they would off on another.  She offers to quietly poison the cupcakes he sneaks out, while tenderly loving his last days.  Mann manages to sweet sell this with mixed components of warmth, lust and remorse.  That feels like the heart of This is 40, but it's a nice, if slightly disposable, trinket of film for the most part.  I sense in a few years time, it might not be a bad idea for Apatow and team to check in with again.  B

Our Idiot Brother

The familiar and welcoming coincide nicely with Our Idiot Brother, an ensemble comedy that's easily digestible as it cloyingly obvious.  Filmed in absolute TV-readiness, but with an assured and engaging ensemble of actors, the overly retreaded feels at times, almost refreshing.  For this is yet another in the long familiar canon of dysfunctional quirky family comedies that's meant to tug at the heart and at the funny bones of any and all.  What the film has going for it in strides is the gamesmanship of a group of actors that through some sort of alchemy or bribery or whatever the case makes the cliches upon cliches that pile up not feel so.  Directed by Jesse Peretz (The Ex and The Chateau, an improvisational comedy starring the titular brother, Paul Rudd) creates such a relaxed environment, likely not only for his actors, but for his audience as well that it feels hard pressed to judge to harshly on the films deficits.  The humor comes easy, but not exactly trailer\marketing-ready-- there's laughs, but in the subtle, easy going, nonchalant variety, rather than gang-busting guffaw.  For Our Idiot Brother centers around a not so bright guy named Ned, a super-chill dude, sweet, mellow and honest (to a fault), played with not a care in the world and with intelligent ease by Paul Rudd.

A farmer specializing in organic vegetables, Ned gets in a humorous run in with law, after he sells an officer (in uniform) some pot...he was coaxed and he's amiable...he's just a chill dude after all.  The aftermath turns into a Job-like follow-up of endless disappointments when Ned is released into the care of his family and traded off to live with his three sisters.  The sitcom-ready premise is set when we meet his family-- there's Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), the Vanity Fair journalist whose all career and bent on more serious stories, Liz (Emily Mortimer), the frigid, stay-at-home mother whose so bent on getting her children to sturdier foundations that she's ignored the fray it's causing them and her unstable marriage, and Natalie (Zooey Deshanel), a free-spirited lesbian with secrets of her own.  As the burden of Ned is handed off from one family member to the next, each of the his sisters, and their secretly unhappy lives become more and more unraveled, thanks to his buffoonery and simple-minded kindness.

And while flaky and utterly sitcom-ready (I kept waiting for the laugh track), there's little to argue with the small, twinkly charms of Rudd and company, who through either happenstance or what, make Our Idiot Brother a nice and breezy aside.  For Rudd, with Jesus hair, and hippie stance is such a peaceful and seemingly low-key film hero, his appearance is almost silly and daffy enough to keep the whole thing afloat.  It's just icing on the cake that his sisters are played by such warm, welcoming and funny women that have the same knack for making the overly familiar seem new and energized.  Added icing is an ace supporting cast that includes Adam Scott (Parks & Recreation) as Miranda's would-be suitor, Steve Coogan as Liz's obnoxious documentarian husband, Hugh Dancy as a flaky new-age artist and Julie White as a cult leader.  B