Film Review: Saturday Night

Saturday Night
Director: Jason Reitman
Reitman/Kenan Productions
In Theaters: 10.11

In case it’s not already abundantly clear, movies are my thing. But I also come from a background of live comedy shows and television, and there’s no rush quite like the electricity in the air when you’re bringing the elements together on opening night. Saturday Night captures the feeling that’s in the air at such a time with a frenzied and exciting energy that’s quite exhilarating.

On October 11, 1975 at 11:30pm, a young television producer named Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle, The Fabelmans), at NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, is scrambling to be ready for the biggest night of his life, as his baby is about to be born. Michaels has been working tirelessly to assemble a group of bold, young comedians and writers for a cutting edge new show called Saturday Night, “the first show made by the generation who grew up with television for the generation who grew up with television.” In the next 90 minutes, Michaels must make final decisions on which sketches and musical acts make the final cuts and massage egos and mediate tense disputes between his cast, especially stars Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith, Wonderstruck, May December) and John Belushi (Matt Wood, Sunset Park), the latter of whom has yet to sign his contract. Michaels must also contend with Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza), a young network executive, looking over his shoulder, hounding him with questions and trying to keep him on task; the tantrums of coked out guest host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), and the question of whether his head writer and wife, Rosie (Rachel Sennot, Bottoms, I Used To Be Funny) wants to be built under by her maiden name or married name, and what exactly is going on between her an actor Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien, The Maze Runner, Love and Monsters). This particular Saturday night could change television forever… if they can make it to air.

Director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) has more than a passing familiarity with the subject matter, having grown up in the sphere of some of the original cast through his father, director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), and through Dan Aykroyd. Reitman and his co-writer, Gil Kenen (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) have created an exuberant and deeply nostalgic love letter that plays up the raw and raucous aspects of the backstage drama for comedic effect, and it’s lot of fun to be a fly on the wall. The movie plays out in real time and never lets up on the breakneck pace, which is quite entertaining, though it does greatly limit our ability to connect with the characters and and their broader stories. Anyone who is familiar with the history of the show and era of comedy doesn’t need much introduction to many of of these people, however, and Reitman has largely gone for a farcical style that only requires the audience to be able to put themselves in Michael’s shoes for 90 minutes. Certainly, some bits are weaker than others—a sequence where Michaels receives a bullying phone call from Johnny Carson falls flat—the overall mix is a success. 

LaBelle and Sennot lead a great ensemble who are faced with the daunting task of bringing legendary figures to life through performances that fall somewhere in between impersonation and characterization. Smith and Wood are so spot on as Chase and Belushi that it’s intoxicating to watch them, and Ella Hunt (Dickinson, Horizon: An American Saga-Part 1) is nothing short of luminous as the late great Gilda Radner. The dynamic between Michaels and Schuster is a remarkably well-written bittersweet tale of crumbling romance, and they are so engaging that at times I found myself wondering how a version of the film that focused on them more directly might have played. Lamorne Morris (New Girl) is a highlight as one of the show’s must frustratingly underutilized talents, Garrett Morris, a Juilliard-trained musical theater actor who is questioning why he’s even on this show and what function he fills in the ensemble, apart from being the only Black actor. Some of the best moments revolve around the interplay between Catherine Curtin (Werewolves Within) as network censor Joan Carbunkle and Tommy Dewey (The Front Runner, Your Monster) as caustic writer Michael O’Donoghue. On the other hand, the gimmick of casting Nicholas Braun (Succession, Cat Person) as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson doesn’t entirely work, and while the portrayal of Henson by all accounts accurately reflects how he was treated by the writers, he comes across a bit too square and certainly too humorless.

On the whole, Saturday Night is a rousingly irreverent and thrilling ride, and one of the most entertaining films of the year. It’s a bit too comfortable staying at the surface level to find enough insight or meaning to be labeled a classic, but it does what it sets out to do with such gleeful abandon that I had few serious complaints. It earns a solid recommendation. –Patrick Gibbs 

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