Live, 90 minutes, before air, it’s SATURDAY NIGHT!!!! Jason Reitman takes us back, behind the scenes before the first ever episode of one of the foundational comedy texts of the 20th Century. If you’re a comedy worshipper, like me, this is pure catnip. And even for a casual viewer, I hope, Saturday Night is going to be a fascinating r rated version of 30 Rock set in the 1970s. Pure kismet too, as we embark on the 50th anniversary of SNL this year.
I’m sure if you asked Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) if 50 years was possible 90 minutes before air, he’d believe you…and be lying out of his ass. Things are a mess: his recently exed-wife Rosie Schuster (Rachel Sennott) hasn’t figured out her end credit. Network big wigs like David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) are pressuring Michaels’s producer Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) to see how likely this “project” is going to succeed. Michaels’s Not Ready for Prime Time Players are all over the place: Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) is being a huge douche, John Belushi (Matt Wood) hates Chevy, and won’t sign his contract, and head writer Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) is pushing the buttons of Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun) and NBC standards and practices every chance he gets. Also, there’s a llama for some reason. None of this matters though, if Lorne can just keep everything from spiraling before the clock hits 11:30, when he knows the magic will come.
Saturday Night certainly feels like the first of it’s kind: a comedy thriller. Jason Reitman’s big task is to make this movie feel like pure chaos, and in that he succeeds in spades. You basically feel like part of a documentary crew, following around Lorne as he has to answer the millions of questions being peppered at him by all sorts of people on all sides of the show’s production. Until, the camera finds something more interesting for a few minutes, and drops in on that convo, then we’re back. If you’re claustrophobic, you’re gonna feel cramped a lot, trapped on Studio 8H with a zillion people going about the business of putting on a show. My head was on a swivel, as we casually walk by random props, little groups of people rehearsing a comedy sketch, union workers arguing with non union workers, whatever Andy Kaufman (also Nicholas Braun) is doing. I left the movie feeling probably how Lorne did in those first couple years at SNL, pulled all over the place, trying to keep a clear head amidst the hurricane of energy surrounding him.
But inside of this chaos, instead of fear/violence like a normal thriller, is laughter. Like a Saturday Night Live episode, sketches are used inside of this movie to fill out the greater whole. Most of them are fun little character interactions, putting random people together to see what fun comes out of it. Watching Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris, not related) talk to Billy Preston (Jon Batiste) about making art, with the band laughing at the Julliard boy with a crisis of confidence is wonderful set up. Paring the volatile Belushi with the sweet Rosie, coaxing this wanna be Brando into a giant bee suit for the sake of avant garde filmmaking, is high browed stupidity in the best way. And then there’s the glorified stand up set hearing Chevy Chase just wow a room of old white men with his bid to be the next big thing among them. Or would you prefer the simplicity of Lorne Michaels getting covered in fake blood after a comedy bit gone wrong? Reitman puts all types of comedic stylings on display: pratfall, pontificating, droll musings, well timed joke runners, insanely weird, sardonic wit, etc. He also was smart enough to give us glimpses of the live show sketches like Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), and Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn) playing gawking female construction workers fawning over Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), or the now famous Weekend Update, etc. Everyone here is ready to play around and make this as fun as possible; the big winners are Tommy Dewey’s head writer Michael O’Donaghue, just murdering everyone with his monotone, confident witticisms, and Cory Michael Smith, embodying Chevy Chase to an almost eerie degree.
I wouldn’t go watch Saturday Night cold. You might need to get your energy and attention up, as this movie will put you in a frantic move, almost immediately. You could do soda, or Ritalin, whatever the kids use these days. Or if you’re feeling really adventurous, channel the comedy greats of this film but just snorting a bunch of cocaine and let that fuel your entertainment. Method acting for the win!