“Inspired by true events” is like catnip for Lifetime movies, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when the cable channel almost immediately jumped on the “Operation Varsity Blues” scandal that broke this past spring. Only seven months later, we now have the unimaginatively titled The College Admissions Scandal, which plays out likes a paint-by-numbers dramatized account of the headlines those riveted by the scandal are already familiar with. In case you’re not, here’s the gist: Several wealthy families have been indicted for enlisting the services of one Rick Singer, who pulled illegal strings to get their kids into prestige colleges like USC, Georgetown, and Stanford. Singer used methods like photoshopping teens’ pictures onto sports photos for fake extracurriculars, and having proctors either help them with their standardized testing or take the tests for them.
Once the jig was up, caught in the FBI dragnet were celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, which amped publicity levels considerably. This Lifetime movie offers reasonable facsimiles of the pair, as Penelope Ann Miller plays the more contrite mom who kept the scheming from her offspring (throwing herself on the mercy of the court, Huffman got away with a 15-day sentence), while Mia Kirshner is the more arrogant, Loughlin facsimile (in real life, the less-apologetic Loughlin rejected a plea deal and awaits trial). Singer does not get a stand-in, but is portrayed outright by Michael Shanks as the devious mastermind behind the whole scheme, which at the end involved about 800 families.
Those facts, while entertaining, play out pretty much as you’d expect—proctor waits for kid to leave the room after turning his SAT test in, then starts erasing his answers to replace them with the right ones. What The College Admissions Scandal has the chance to offer here is the reasoning behind these duplicitous and damaging actions. Huffman, ultimately caught up in a mail-fraud charge (much is made in the movie that payment was accepted as a donation to Singer’s 503c foundation so that parents could write it off, leading to charges of money laundering), told the judge she wanted her daughter to have a “fair shot” at college. Which begs the question: If the daughter of William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman isn’t going to get a “fair shot” at college, who will?
TCAS attempts to delve deeper into the impetus for why an already extremely privileged person would further extend that privilege by falsely inflating their child’s SAT scores. In the film, Danny (Sam Duke), the son of Miller’s Caroline, is (gasp) a musician who isn’t half as into his academic schedule as his mom is; she knows that his term paper on the Hundred Years’ War is only two weeks away. There’s helicopter parenting and then there’s a drone hovering right over your head at all times, and Danny’s parents are the latter. Caroline rants, “I’m scared for you. I don’t know how you’re going to make a living! You’re going to end up homeless and in the streets,” which seems like a quite a downward spiral for the only child of a lawyer and a high-end interior designer in Montecito, California. So Danny’s parents pay $100,000 for that proctor to boost their kid’s SAT score, which he doesn’t find out about until his parents get arrested.
As bad as Danny has it, Emma (Sarah Dugdale) might be even worse: Railroaded by her mother to pretend she plays soccer, she greedily accepts the proctor’s correct answers on her test. Her Machiavellian mother, Bethany (Kirshner), plays the Darwin card, pointing out that parents even wealthier than she is donate entire buildings to get their kids into Harvard and Yale. She also brings up how some low-income students don’t have the same high test score requirements: “They have their advantages and we have ours.”
These women live in a bubble where parents toss PSAT scores around over coffee, where hiring a “consultant” to get their kid into college is par-for-the-course. Where a perfectly reasonable public policy major at George Washington is dismissed outright as not as good as Yale. Meanwhile, Rick greedily cashes these desperate parents’ checks, offering kickbacks to the plethora of coaches who pretend they want these non-athletes on their teams. The mental gymnastics these parents go through to rationalize their illegal actions is impressive: “Are they bribes?” Caroline dubiously asks her lawyer husband. “They’re actually bribes,” he steadfastly confirms. But when he sees his law partner’s son get early admission to Princeton, he climbs aboard as well.
The College Admissions Scandal offers the brutal aftermath of the crimes of the guilty, which only get viewed from the wide angle of tabloids. The children are ostracized from their friends and understandably devastated, angrily asking their parents why who they are just wasn’t good enough. Caroline’s husband will be disbarred for committing a felony, and all her clients jump ship. The brittle Bethany finally cracks and winds up weeping in a closet, as she’s fired and her partners sue her. Worst of all, her daughter isn’t speaking to her, and will likely have trouble getting into any college at this point. Caroline’s son flees the family as well, leaving the parents to finally listen to some of his music, as that’s all they have left of him.
To its credit, The College Admissions Scandal doesn’t wrap things up in anything even remotely resembling a happy ending. Families are torn apart, and prison is looming. It plays like an after-school special of a cautionary tale (for the .001% who have six figures to toss around on fake test scores), but it’s still hard to muster up sympathy for even these destroyed characters at the end. The only reason that they express any regret at all is because they got caught; their presiding emotion before the feds show up is relief that their offspring are getting into the schools of the parents’ choice. Miller’s Caroline has momentary pangs, but only because she’s afraid Danny might find out all the strings they had to pull to make him think he was worthy of Stanford. There’s unfortunately much too little about the real victims here—the hundreds of kids those spots belonged to in the first place, which they were robbed of due to a heartless mercenary conspiracy rooted in class privilege.
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Penelope Ann Miller?! Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time. Not since her early 90s heyday.
She is pretty much a staple in hallmark and direct to video movies. Other than a supporting role in 2011’s The Artist as Jean Dujardin’s wife, she ‘s not been in much movies of note. It’s a shame, 90’s Penelope (specially in Carlito’s Way) is my lifelong crush.
IS IT A SHAME? FOR WHO? YOU?AS FAR AS WE KNOW, THESE LOW STRESS WITH EQUIVALENT CHECKS WORKS ARE EXACTLY WHAT SHE WANTS.
Miller was in Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation, but I can see why no one wants to talk about that one. But I liked her from Adventures in Babysitting and Kindergarten Cop.
I had such a crush on her as Margo Lane.
She was everywhere, but I had a lot trouble remembering any movie I saw her in until I looked them up. I maybe remember her the best in Awakenings, but I know I saw her in ten more movies.
with actresses of her generation I always have to wonder if they didn’t play long with the weinstein’s of the world. Those guys seemed to have it out for Gen X actresses….
It seems like she has worked pretty consistently, but never in anything where she broke out to the upper ranks of actresses.
For me, one of the big, depressing revelations with Weinstein was just how many actresses from that era that I always noted “just disappeared from acting” actually ran afoul of him. I mean, she fits right in that era . . .
I kinda hope someone makes a “Searching for Debora Winger” style doc about the up and coming actresses of that era who found themselves derailed by rejecting or not playing along.. with the Moonves and weinstein types.. it is at the point when I wonder what happened to… Amanda Peterson (for instance) I figure she got weinsteined… ditto any MIA Gen X actress who seemed to fall off the face of the earth…
side note ** time to rewatch Searching for Debra Winger.**
I loved her in The Freshman.
I loved her leather microdress in The Freshman
Criminally underrated movie.
You check the ages of ‘disappeared’ movie ingénues from the good old day and its like yeh, they appear to have hit that famous ‘age wall’ for Hollywood movie actresses. Some eventually age into TV character roles and their careers revive, some just drop off the radar. Ms. Miller’s done better than most, her IMDb page is pretty full.
Channels like Hallmark make their livings casting recognizable no-longer-it actresses. Miller fits the profile perfectly.
I enjoyed her in what i’ve seen – Carlito’s Way, Kindergarten Cop, and… TheYear of the Comet, come to mind first. But I think she got displaced by Sharon Stone in the edgier/bigger profile movies, Hope Davis/Laura Linney/Joely Richardson(then later by her clone Naomi Watts) in the mid-range movies.
She seemed prime for starring in one of those “Brothers & Sisters” ABC dramas. A name, but not too big a star for TV.
She was a regular in my fantasies back in the day. You know…fantasies i.e…….
Nobody:
Lifetime: WE MADE A COLLEGE ADMISSIONS MOVIE
Wow i haven’t seen Mia Kirshner in anything since The Black Dhalia. She actually looks a lot better with a bit of weight on her.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BONER
eh, I’ve always thought she was stunning. I’ve probably had a crush on her since Dracula the series and am possibly the only person that loved Jenny on the L Word.
She’s had a recurring role on Star Trek: Discovery as Spock’s mom, Amanda. Sadly, that role has likely come to an end for plot-related reasons.
OF COURSE ITS BLAND.HOW EXCITING DO YOU THINK A MOVIE BASED OFF OF A COLLEGE ADMISSION SCANDAL IS GOING TO BE? ESPECIALLY WHEN THE TRANSACTION IS JUST MONEYBOOOOOORINGTOO BAD THESE LADIES DIDNT SELL THEIR PUSSY TO GET THEIR KIDS INTO COLLEGE. THAT IS A MOVIE WORTH EXPLORING
This movie would never get into Brown with a C+ rating from Ihnat. Maybe Rick Singer can help.
They should be feathered and tarred in the old-fanshioned way by poor students and their parents in public, with the video evidence all over Facebook and YouTube.
I’m thinking they should each be made to pay full tuition, room, and board for several low-income students for four years. And to actually get to know those students so “a fair shot” has some meaning.
Why punish the students?
Point taken.
The trailer is the most seizure inducing half second clips montage I’ve ever seen
I’m always surprised anyone watches Lifetime movies. There’s not enough marijuana in the world to make them even laughable.
Or other worlds.
Huffman, ultimately caught up in a mail-fraud charge (much is made in the movie that payment was accepted as a donation to Singer’s 503c foundation so that parents could write it off, leading to charges of money laundering), told the judge she wanted her daughter to have a “fair shot” at college. Which begs the question: If the daughter of William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman isn’t going to get a “fair shot” at college, who will?Don’t accept the premise: Even without the cheating, Macy and Huffman’s kids had far more than a “fair shot” at college compared to the overwhelming majority of people.
What’s amazing is that they could have made a legit donation to the school and gotten special treatment that way, instead of all the cloak and dagger shit.But they did have to write off the foundation “donation” for tax purposes in order for it to look legitimate to the IRS.
They’re celebrities. they didn’t even need a donation. They could do a few seminars and get themselves discreetly placed on the faculty and use that for preferred admission.
Hmm…maybe McConaughey is playing the long game at UT.
Sigh. I miss the ‘Big Three’ networks’ made-for-TV movies and miniseries from back-in-the-day. Not that I particularly liked them but I still miss them.
hell, there was also the Mystery Movie of the Week – Columbo, Banacek, McMillan & Wife, McCloud, etc. – which aired 2hr episodes and shorter seasons (6 ep seasons, etc).i’m kind of surprised networks (cable & air) don’t go back to this format, given the evidence of folks’ willingess to sit thru 2-hr eps of GoT, and limited-format series. I guess the Ryan Murphy miniseries format is the logical heir, but i still miss having an episodic series like those.
That format is still hanging on in the UK – Endeavour comes to mind – but it seems to be fading even there. Regardless of actual length/# of episodes, I do generally wish that tv shows were more intentional with their seasons: if you only have 2 seasons’ worth of story, only make two seasons; if you only have 10 episodes’ worth, then only make 10 episodes. I love that most KDramas are only 1 season, but now that Netflix is entering the KDrama market even that is changing – I ended up with two surprise cliffhangers recently, there was much cursing at the TV.
yeah, i do enjoy the 90min UK murder mystery show – Wallender, Jack Taylor, Jack Irish, etc etc.
Well, Columbo still stands up as some of the best TV drama even today (McMillan & Wife and McCloud, though not without their charms, were never quite up to the same standard). But I think what MikeD was talking about were the “instant” made for TV movies the networks used to crank out in the early 90’s after every major tabliod scandal (hence the infamous “What you are about to see is based upon real events” tagline that used to precede them). I think all three original networks ran movies about the Amy Fischer case on the very same night, with Fox not far behind. Ditto O.J.
And when I say “instant,” I do so because they were very similar in tone, style, production timelines, and quality to the “instant books” on these scandals that would often flood supermarkets and drug stores at the same time: they were thrown together as the story was still developing – sometimes within a matter of weeks of it breaking.
oh, for sure, i get the difference. I’m mostly just saying: I wonder if the networks are overlooking people’s willingness to consume a 2-hr (w/ ads) entertainment on a routine basis. What if Law & Order was 10 2-hr episodes instead of 20 1-hr shows?
Granted, life moves faster now and people’s patience is lower, so maybe not. But i still stream the hell out of Columbo, it’s just wonderful comfort food TV, and i kinda wish there was a once-a-month show that went 2hrs.There was that spoof(ish) movie “Handsome” on netflix that was very similar. I even enjoyed that, wish they would make more.
Of course its dull. The story was a big deal because it was just a great case of the rich fucking over everyone. It wasn’t a very interesting way they were fucking people over, it was really just proving what everyone sorta already knew.
The story was also a big deal because it snared some people that the public would at least recognize, which means Lifetime’s fictionalization completely misses the point. If the scandal had only caught some absurdly rich but generally anonymous finance types, there would have been some indignation, but as you say, it wasn’t exactly shocking that this was going on. It’s only because the story gave everyone the opportunity to make “Desperate Housewives,” “Fargo,” and “Full House” jokes that it’s stayed in the public consciousness for this long.
“[I]t was really just proving what everyone sorta already knew.You probably didn’t mean it this way, but I kind of have a problem when people take that pose during these scandals involving wealthy, powerful people. Mainly because it has a tendency to normalize and perhaps even legitimize their behavior. After all, a thief’s going to steal and a serial killer’s going to kill. But we don’t shrug and say, “What else did you expect?” when they get caught in the act.
“a great case of the rich fucking over everyone”It was a great case of the petit bourgeoisie being put back in their place. Though wealthy, these people still sell their labor for a wage and the truly rich do not count them among their ranks. They tried to rise above their station and had to be cut down. That it also provided a spectacle for the poles is just icing on the cake.
I’m still amazed it took anyone this long to figure out that a coach can fairly easily get a non-scholarship athlete admitted to a university (since it doesn’t cost the school anything), and that many of those coaches don’t make much money.But what really cracks me up is that Loughlin had to pony up half a million to get her vapid daughter into school, while it only cost Huffman something like $25k.
For that matter, why has nobody questioned why something like the crew or lacrosse team gets admission slots allotted to it? I mean, can you imagine the director of the college radio station or newspaper saying, “Hey, I know this kid doesn’t have the grades or the test scores, but we think he’d make a great addition to the staff, so can you let him in?”
For men’s teams, it’s the price of fielding a program. The kids I mentioned in my other posts are both going to top 20 academic universities that would probably have a hard time fielding teams at all if they had to draw from their regular-way applicant pool.For women’s team at colleges that have football programs, it’s largely Title IX compliance. My college dropped men’s soccer and swimming and added women’s bowling, cross country and lacrosse because the football team throws the numbers so far out of balance.
I wonder if Loughlin’s just a really bad negotiator.“I’m telling you upfront, I’m not paying a penny more than $500 000!”“…well, you drive a hard bargain, Ms. Loughlin, but I think we can make that work.”
Can’t wait for their dramatization of the Lincoln assassination: Play Ends Unexpectedly
And someone probably could have made a decent movie out of this, too…
Turns out, before the scandal broke, one of the sleeper hits of last year in South Korea was a tv show about college admissions tinkering, told from the point of view of the ruthless parents. Total ratings gold. It was _delicious_.I totally recommend it.
Sad to see 2 good actresses having to slum in lifetime movies, but I guess everyone needs a paycheck.
The scandal itself was pretty boring, too.
They should have gone full Tarantino and just changed how it ends.
Penelope Ann Miller kicking Bruce Lee’s ass?I would watch that.
“[I]n real life, the less-apologetic Loughlin has yet to be sentenced” Well, that stands to reason as Loughlin has yet to be tried or convicted, and is therefore innocent until proven guilty. Theoretically, she may never be “sentenced,” as we only do that to people after a conviction. Yes, the odds of her eventually being sentenced are great (Federal conviction rates are very, very high). But as a basic principle, you don’t present a potential outcome as an inevitable one.
I don’t seize upon this point because I’m just really upset about what they’re putting Aunt Becky through. I point this out because the A.V. Club has a long history of misrepresenting and/or misunderstanding basic concepts of the U.S. legal system. This has been going on since at least the start of the Kinja era, and possibly longer.Look, I know you’re all movie and TV and entertainment writers and not lawyers, but there are basic practices every journalist should adhere to. Like, when somebody is accused of a crime you say, “So-and-so is accused of X,” or “Prosecutors allege that Jane Doe committed the crime of Y.” You do this regardless of how “obvious” that person’s culpability may be. Doing otherwise is just sloppy journalism.
Thanks for pointing that out; changed above.
From the producers of ‘The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down’.
…She also brings up how some low-income students don’t have the same high test score requirements: “They have their advantages and we have ours.”..Just because she’s rich doesn’t mean she is wrong.Look, as a european i don’t mind that you guys are fucking up your higher education system, but you might look into selecting based on rigurously-controled testing
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