2024 ‧Historical Comedy‧ 109m
Saturday Night Live has gone down as one of the most important shows of all time. It just started it’s 50th season this year, and all that time has brought many legends. Lorne Michaels has been at the helm of all but 5 years of the show, and he too has reached a legendary status. Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night gives us the chaos and anarchy leading up to the first episode of SNL.
Lorne Michaels has been given a shot. NBC, who is currently quibbling with Johnny Carson, has decided to let him have a chance at 90 minutes of live television. Michals, his wife Rosie, and his producer Dick have gathered a rag-tag group of funny people. The idea isn’t fully formed yet, it feels like a collection of random bits: musical performances, sketches, stand-up, fake commercials, and Jim Hensen’s Muppets. Several things are not ready for the show. They don’t have a studio audience, the lighting hasn’t been figured out, the Muppets don’t have pages written for them yet, and John Belushi hasn’t signed his contract. To name a few. During all this, a network exec is there ready to pull the plug and rerun Carson if Michaels can’t convince him he knows what he’s doing.
Rachel Sennott and Gabriel LaBelle have good chemistry as Rosie Shuster and Lorne Michaels respectively. The only flaw is that LaBelle seems a little young compared to his peers. Something that is easy to get passed, but it is there. LaBelle is still great to follow throughout the chaos. Reitman does well to not completely glorify Michaels much here, he often shows him over his head and floundering. Undoubtedly much of this has to be exaggerated, didn’t happen that night, or at all. However, Reitman still makes it believable.
Though Michaels is who we follow the most in the film, it’s the ensemble that really makes the film work. The cast might be the film’s greatest success. Not only do the players look like and sound like the Not Ready for Prime Time Players when they rehearse sketches before air, they also nail the quiet calm parts. As with most ensemble films, no one quite gets to shine here, and the audience is probably bring more depth with previous knowledge about the early SNL cast than what is provided by the film.
Despite the fact that the audience will already know the outcome, Reitman still creates and maintains this palpable tension all the way to the end. This tension and anxiety are greatly aided by Jon Batiste’s score, who also plays Billy Preston in the film. The comedy juxtaposed with the tension rivals another Rachel Sennott vehicle, Shiva Baby. There are many “troubled production” films and audience members may be reminded of The Disaster Artist, Ed Wood, and Noises Off! Saturday Night is like those films, but more like Altman’s Prairie Home Companion mixed with Scorsese’s After Hours. And given the importance of SNL, the ensemble nature, and all the walking-and-talking, we should be thankful that Aaron Sorkin was not involved in the making of this film.
Though likely not entirely historically accurate, Saturday Night is a fun and fascinating look into the beginning of a cultural phenomenon. Reitman walks the difficult line of tense and hilarious with ease and the performances make this a fun history lesson.
Grade: B
~Andrew