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Chris Smith's documentary wisely understands that the 2019 college admissions scandal is part of a larger broken system.
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Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal
The director of Fyre and producer of Tiger King uses scripts from real-life wire-taps to recreate the 2019 scandal that saw one man, Rick Singer, convince his wealthy clients (including actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman) to cheat the education system and fast-track their kids into college—an admissions system that's already built in their favour.
202199 minsUSA
CrimeDocumentary
- Director:
- Chris Smith
Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal / Reviews
Hollywood Reporter
The script's skilful tension makes it easy to forgive Operation Varsity Blues its occasionally clunky missteps.
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...Bluntly effective in getting across the casual venality of (Springer's) clients, who rarely pause to consider the moral implications of their choices, though they frequently remember to fret about being caught.
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Variety
What makes Operation Varsity Blues a movie of great value... is that it presents a searing and searching indictment of the commodification of college...
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Chicago Sun-Times
The documentary does a solid job of detailing how it all came crashing down...
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A.V. Club
What 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.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Operation Varsity Blues is entertaining, but may send you into a sputtering rage.
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CNN
The salacious aspects of the scandal still earn a passing grade, but due to the unwieldy hybrid format, just barely.
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