Final Rating: 4.5/5
Saturday Night Live is an institution of television. It has been on the air for almost fifty years, aired almost 1000 episodes and has been a cultural behemoth for so long that it’s boring and trendy to complain that the show is no longer funny. The show launched the careers of so many people that it would be impossible to list even a fraction of them.
But back in 1975, 31 year old Lorne Michaels was doing something unthinkable. He was trying to be subversive on network TV using well worn variety show outlines, but instead was pushing boundaries and using unknowns to sell his product.
SATURDAY NIGHT (the actual original title for SNL), directed by Jason Reitman, is a movie that is bursting at the seams with conflicts between creativity and not stepping out of line. It is a large ensemble cast showing how the creators, writers, executives, cast and guest stars all came together to put on the very first episode of the show.
The film chronicles the night of October 11th, 1975 between the dress rehearsal and the airing of the very first episode hosted by George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) with musical guests Billy Preston (Jon Batiste) and Janis Ian (Naomi McPherson). Producers Lorne Michaels (Gabrielle LaBelle) and Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) are in a bind. They have only a few hours left to go, the set isn’t fully built, the lighting director quits because of Lorne’s unending demands of perfection, John Belushi (Matt Wood) hasn’t signed his contract yet, no one wants to write for Jim Henson’s (Nicolas Braun) muppets, the ninety minute show was three hours during the dress rehearsal and to top it all off Lorne’s estranged wife Rosie (Rachel Sennott), a writer on the show, doesn’t know if she should be credited under her maiden name Shuster or her married name Michaels and wants Lorne to decide.
This is to say nothing of the standards and practices woman from NBC who has an issue with everything in the scripts from clam diving, to golden showers to blue balls (she knows what that one means), fifty local affiliate directors in town to watch the premiere which will make or break the show, and an NBC head honcho who has to decide whether to air the show or just go with a Johnny Carson re-run. Understandably, things are tense in studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.
The lore of SNL runs deep, and the original cast of seven have an outstanding history with the show. The film smartly blends having the actors do impersonations while also allowing them to be their own characters. Standouts include Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, who nails the arrogance of always believing he is the funniest (and best looking) man in every room he walks into. His confidence is off the charts, and while the film skewers him the most of any member predicting that his assholery will eventually make him persona non grata, it doesn’t shy away from showing that he was one of the main reasons for the show being as successful as it was.
Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd is another revelation, watching him cover up the nerves of being on live TV with over the top machismo works great as a counterpoint to Chase. Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris (no relation), works great as (character) Morris was brought in to the cast to be a stabilizing veteran for the up and comers and (actor) Morris himself being a veteran of comedy having spent seven seasons playing Winston on New Girl is one of the more experienced cast members of SATURDAY NIGHT. In reality Garrett Morris was never properly utilized on SNL, and we see the seeds of uncomfortability growing of what his place on this avant garde show is.
Jon Batiste pulls double duty with not only acting as Billy Peston, the first musical guest in the show’s history, but he also continues his trend of excellent scoring. The film alternates between high tempo and minimalism to ramp up anxiety. On one hand you have the heart pounding orchestral clashing as we watch Lorne Michaels run from room to room putting out fires, talking people down from ledges and trying to make something truly great and on the other a countdown clock, with a single note denoting the minute changes, always reminding the audience of the approaching deadline.
The film obviously takes liberty with its recreations as most of the events depicted happened over the course of a week, and not in the final hours before airing, but when watching biopics you have to go in with an understanding that things are changed for dramatic tension. With a massive cast and a sub two hour runtime, not everyone gets equal screen time or arcs, which unfortunately means that Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), Jane Curtain (Kim Matula) (all three female cast members) get shafted in this regard.
Even John Belushi is underutilized, with most of his scenes having to do with some sort of unexplained anxiety about not wanting to sign a contract. While drugs were ultimately the demise of Belushi in 1982, he is the only one shown using cocaine in the film despite the well recorded fact that just about the entire cast and crew abused the drug to make the show run for years (up until the late 90’s).
Both Gabrielle LaBelle and Cooper Hoffman show they aren’t one trick ponies, while continuing to play men from the hippie generation. LaBelle smartly doesn’t do a Lorne Michaels vocal impression, an impression that sounds suspiciously like Dr. Evil according to fellow SNL alum Mike Myers, and instead opts to just convey his brilliance in noticing talent and giving them the space to succeed.
All this is to say that even without the hilarious performance of JK Simmons as comedy legend Milton Berle or the stoic terror of Willem Dafoe’s David Tebet, or the incredible spot on impressions of both Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman by Nicolas Braun or Paul Rust always being in the background with the perfect energy as iconic band member Paul Shaffer, there is so much to love about this film.
We get hints at future iconic sketches in the form of Al Franken (Taylor Gray) and Bob Pook (Drew Scheid) workshopping Julia Child cutting herself carving a turkey and spraying the entire set with blood, or when Aykroyd has to talk down Michaels’ tripping assistant who has locked himself behind a door just like how he would play Jimmy Carter giving advice to a nervous caller who is tripping on acid.
Will this movie appeal to people who are not diehard Saturday Night Live fans? Possibly not in the same way, as the film is packed to the gills with references and moments (like why is there always a llama and President Lincoln in the hallways backstage) that might not quite resonate. But for those that grew up loving the show, it’s just about everything you could ask for in a comedic recreation of the inaugural season.
SATURDAY NIGHT was seen during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
