( EW.com ) -- There have been so many shrill , dumb , rinky-dink romantic comedies that it 's easy to feel downright grateful when a smart , non-cheesy one comes along . `` Admission , '' a likable breezy campus movie directed by Paul Weitz ( `` About a Boy '' ) , is blissfully non-insulting . The film is set at Princeton University , and Karen Croner 's screenplay , which is based on Jean Hanff Korelitz 's novel , crackles with the sound of very clever people trying to out-talk each other — an all too rare and happy thing to encounter in a Hollywood movie . Box office preview : 'The Croods ' will oust 'Oz ' from top spot . Portia Nathan ( Tina Fey ) is one of Princeton 's elite team of admissions officers . She has the job of helping to choose which of the college 's more than 26,000 yearly applicants , all of whom believe they deserve a place in the Princeton pantheon , are going to get in . ( Approximate acceptance ratio : 1 in 26 . ) In this academic seller 's market , Portia holds the power . But so much is riding on her decisions that the pressure of sorting through all those high school seniors , with their hilariously overstuffed extracurricular résumés ( and their even more obsessive parents ) , has strung her tight . Fey 's sweet-and-sour line readings at first sound like Liz Lemon redux , and I was glad for the moment when her 10-year relationship with a twit of an English professor ( Michael Sheen , who also played one of Liz 's disastrous boyfriends on `` 30 Rock '' ) crashes and burns . The breakup unhinges Fey 's character , and liberates her performance . From that point on , she 's falling apart — or at least falling into a pit of desperation — and the neurotic crack-up looks good on her . It gives almost everything she does a shimmer of spontaneity . John Pressman ( Paul Rudd ) , a teacher at a woodsy alternative New Hampshire high school called New Quest , is Portia 's opposite : a do-gooding globe-trotter who believes in the kind of excellence that ca n't always be measured by grades or `` official '' achievement . 'Admission ' star Nat Wolff applied early-decision for stardom . He 's pushing one of his students for admission to Princeton ; the kid , Jeremiah ( Nat Wolff ) , is a prodigy with a troubled background , and John and Portia begin to tussle over his future from the moment they meet . John thinks that Jeremiah may be Portia 's son , and the battle , as far as it goes , is lively . But then , just about every character in `` Admission '' has an enjoyably feisty intellectual attitude , from the wily dean of admissions ( Wallace Shawn , for once not used as a walking punchline , and all the better for it ) , to Portia 's switchblade-sharp office rival ( Gloria Reuben ) , to the precocious students at John 's school who question Portia about Princeton being a `` corporation '' devoted to the status quo . That Portia answers their gripe every bit as tartly demonstrates that the movie holds its traditional-versus-free-thinking priorities in a nice yin-and-yang balance . `` Admission '' has a promising first half , and the movie springs a real wild card in Lily Tomlin 's brashly cutting and funny turn as Portia 's mother , who wears her die-hard '70s feminism like a suit of burlap armor . Tomlin totally lets go . Her performance is an inspired satire of boomer self-righteousness and , at the same time , an unapologetic celebration of it . Line by line , `` Admission '' is often fresh , yet it 's also one of those films that are so diagrammed that a soggy predictability begins to settle in . For a while , Fey and Rudd spark each other , but the bantering flirtation loses heat . I think that 's because Portia , as written , has a genuine edge to her , whereas Rudd , with his smiley sincerity , is stuck playing too nice and flawless a guy . John would have been a more logical romantic foil if he 'd had a pesky , holier-than-thou side . Kate Winslet confirmed for role in 'Divergent ' Even with this soft-boiled romance at its center , `` Admission '' really is a movie about whether Jeremiah , with his lowly grade-point average and astonishing AP test scores , is going to get into Princeton . And here , I 'm afraid , the film 's values are a bit out of whack . It makes us pine for that ideal of Ivy League opportunity , a dream that it hangs on the issue of Jeremiah 's admission . But what if he did n't get in ? Surely he could go to some other good college . ( He would seem perfect for Oberlin . ) For a movie that 's out to tweak the control-freak nature of the college-application process , `` Admission , '' in the end , bows down far too slavishly to it . It confuses achievement with acceptance . Grade : B . See the original story at EW.com . CLICK HERE to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly . © 2011 Entertainment Weekly and Time Inc. All rights reserved .
'Admission ' is a likable , breezy romantic comedy . It's not the best movie ever made Yet after the first half , predictability sets in . Overall , the movie gets a `` B '' grade .