The College Admissions Scandal was one of the few unifying moments in recent memory. No matter where you stand politically it is very easy to get angry at famous rich people using their money to get their kids into college. But the scandal, trials, and paltry jail sentences that followed left some open questions like...how did this all work. Today's documentary seeks to answer that question.
The Setup
The film centers around Rick Singer, a college admissions advisor with larger than life promises. And for families with means looking to get their children into prestigious institutions, without a building's worth of money on the college's doorstep, Singer had a solution. A series of so-called "side doors" to get his clients' children in the door. But little did he know that his conversations were being recorded by the F.B.I...
This film has two distinctive hooks. The first is the story itself because it highlights a number of systemic problems in higher education. Director Chris Smith has a great collection of college advisors and scholars who details the intense pressure modern students are under to get into top flight schools, despite declining acceptance rates, and how flimsy the justification is for schools to be ranked as high as they are. My favorite talking head makes a point to say that almost every student can get into a good college, but that most of them are so focused on the big names, they don't expand their horizons and options.
Likewise, Smith points out that the scale is already tipped in rich students favor. There's a lot of compelling statistics about how much better students in wealthy districts do and how much a college advisor or test prep course can cost. It's a discrepancy that makes the scandal itself all the more infuriating. These people already had a gigantic advantage, and still tried to cheat. It's something that you already kinda know/believe, but the film explains why that assumption is correct.
The second hook is the reenactments. Now reenactments are standard in non-fiction filmmaking whether you're making a C-level Discovery show or a top flight documentary. But this one has something even better. Because the F.B.I. captured and released hours upon hours of tape of Ringer on the phone with his clients, each scene is an actual phone call. And all of the effort, that undoubtedly went it to selecting which calls to use, the staging, and hiring and name actor like Matthew Modine to play Singer, pays off big.
These calls function as both exposition and story because we both see what Singer offers and how he lays it out for his clients, and also get a better feel for him as a person and how people were persuaded and eventually caught.
While the calls are as infuriating as you'd expect, the thing that really stands out is how much the parents pushed for this. Lori Laughlin's children in particular are highlighted as being average students who were on track for success regardless of what college they got into. But according to their classmates, the parental expectations were very high. In many cases the parents even insist that their child is perpetually in the dark.
I wish the film got into this more, but I think it's very important to note how parents view their children's school admission as a status symbol or essential to a good future, even when they make enough money to guarantee their comfort for the rest of the lives.
I do wish the film was a little bit longer and focused more on the impact this has on potential students, but the story and details are lurid enough to stand on their own.
Verdict: Good Subject, Well Made
Making great use of the available information, Operation Varsity Blues with rightfully make you angry all over again. 8/10
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