Big-hearted comedy 'Admission' exclusive at Ayala Malls Cinemas

MANILA, Philippines - Tina Fey (“30 Rock”) and Paul Rudd (“Knocked Up”) are paired for the first time on-screen in Focus Features' “Admission,” the new comedy/drama directed by Academy Award nominee Paul Weitz (“About a Boy”) about the surprising detours we encounter on the road to happiness.

“Admission” will be shown exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas starting March 22 – the same opening day as the US. Moviegoers can catch the film at Glorietta 4, Greenbelt 3, Trinoma, Alabang Town Center and Market! Market!

In “Admission,” high school seniors anxiously await letters of college admission that will affirm and encourage their potential. At Princeton University, admissions officer Portia Nathan (Fey) is a gatekeeper evaluating thousands of applicants. Year in and year out, Portia has lived her life by the book, at work as well as at the home she shares with Princeton professor Mark (Michael Sheen). When Clarence (Wallace Shawn), the Dean of Admissions, announces his impending retirement, the likeliest candidates to succeed him are Portia and her office rival Corinne (Gloria Reuben). For Portia, however, it’s business as usual as she hits the road on her annual recruiting trip.

On the road, Portia reconnects with her iconoclastic mother, Susannah (Lily Tomlin). On her visit to New Quest, an alternative high school, she then reconnects with her former college classmate, idealistic teacher John Pressman (Rudd) – who has recently surmised that Jeremiah (Nat Wolff), a gifted yet very unconventional New Quest student, might well be the son that Portia secretly gave up for adoption years ago while at school. Jeremiah is about to apply to Princeton.

Now Portia must re-evaluate her personal and professional existences, as she finds herself bending the admissions rules for Jeremiah, putting at risk the future she thought she always wanted – and in the process finding her way to a surprising and exhilarating life and romance she never dreamed of having.

“I’ve written plays with female protagonists but am embarrassed that I haven’t directed a movie whose clear lead was a woman,” confesses director Paul Weitz. “I wanted to spend time with this character, Portia Nathan.”

Continues Weitz, “I was very lucky to work with Tina Fey on `Admission.' Her breadth of intelligence and her lack of pretentiousness are qualities I aspire to. Reading her book Bossypants was a good cheat-sheet for directing her.”

On what drew him to the story of “Admission,” the director notes, “Thematically, I like stories of screwed-up people who think they don’t have anything to offer emotionally but who cobble together an unconventional family. It’s a fable, but one might as well tell that kind of fable as the pace of cultural change speeds up. We can either get over our germ phobia and link hands or go flying off the centrifuge.”