An examination that goes beyond the celebrity-driven headlines and dives into the methods used by Rick Singer, the man at the center of the shocking 2019 college admissions scandal, to persuade his wealthy clients to cheat an educational system already designed to benefit the privileged.... (Full plot summary below)
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An examination that goes beyond the celebrity-driven headlines and dives into the methods used by Rick Singer, the man at the center of the shocking 2019 college admissions scandal, to persuade his wealthy clients to cheat an educational system already designed to benefit the privileged.
Leave your thoughts about Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.
| The New York TimesAmy NicholsonThe gripping documentary Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal shifts the spotlight back to Singer, played in re-enactments by Matthew Modine with dialogue taken directly from wiretaps, to understand how a flip flop-clad former basketball coach rebranded himself as an academic glad-hander for the 1 percent. |
| The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayWhat becomes clear in this film—if it wasn’t obvious already—is that sometimes the ways in which the rich and powerful thrive have nothing to do with merit. Sometimes they just buy access to people like Singer, who are good at selling their customers a story they can tell. |
| The PlaylistChris BarsantiThe true drama in the admissions scandal is not the ringleader or the celebrities and hedge-fund magnates who hired him but what this Hunger Games scenario means for all the children whose parents cannot afford his services. |
| RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoThe unique approach mostly works, although it does leave a few questions unanswered regarding a case that’s kind of still unfolding. Most of all, Smith succeeds by capturing how this isn’t a case about an individual or the many parents who worked with him to cheat the system, but how the system itself is deeply broken. |
| Movie NationRoger MooreIt’s a healthy reminder that fighting corruption, even in something as mundane as college admissions, is vital to society’s health, that Americans need to at least believe there’s a “level playing field,” and that not guaranteeing that is how we mediocre our way from the top of the world to Banana Republic in just a generation. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOperation Varsity Blues: The College Admission Scandal is a documentary, yet Matthew Modine does some of the most oddly compelling work of his career in a fully realized performance in this movie. |
| Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzIt’s a movie as much about white privilege as it is anything else, an examination of the incredible advantages the wealthy have — advantages that don’t prevent them from cheating anyway. |
| Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMost illuminating are the various journalists, attorneys, witnesses, and admissions counselors who testify to the case |
| TheWrapAlonso DuraldeEven with the re-enactments, this is a pretty straightforward documentary. It’s nonetheless valuable for the way that it takes a complicated story and breaks it down into understandable pieces. |
| San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAs a piece of filmmaking, the trick of Operation Varsity Blues is that it provides first-rate entertainment even as it incites sputtering rage. |
