TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 REVIEW! Jason Reitman’s latest film, Saturday Night, is set in the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of what would become known as Saturday Night Live and attempts to capture the chaos, beauty, uncertainty, humanity, chutzpah, and artistry of the origin of this profound thing that would transform American culture. It succeeds, but it only does so by subverting the very thing it is trying to celebrate. The creation of Saturday Night Live was semi-orchestrated chaos and experimentation that seemingly sprung out of nowhere. Still, Saturday Night is an almost overly planned, scripted, and Hollywoodized attempt at recreating the feeling of that moment in history while sacrificing the literal truth. The trade is worth it.
SNL’s creator, Lorne Michaels, played by Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans), is the central character in a vast ensemble. As he wanders the building in the lead-up to the premiere, everything is in chaos — an NBC Page (Finn Wolfhard) is having a tough time recruiting an audience, there are problems with deliveries, bricks are still being laid on the set, and a lighting disaster means that they are even short critical crew members. Meanwhile, John Belushi (whose full physical intensity is brought by Matt Wood) is rebelling, running off on a coke bender, and refuses to sign his contract. That’s when he’s not getting into fistfights with Chevy Chase (convincingly portrayed by Cory Michael Smith), who is charming but a little too full of himself. Meanwhile, NBC executive Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) is shadowing Michaels, trying unsuccessfully to help him out of jams, and NBC Executive David Tebet (a suitably intimidating Willem Dafoe) warns us if the show isn’t ready, he’ll just go with a rerun of The Tonight Show.
Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) in SATURDAY NIGHT.
“…set in the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of what would become known as Saturday Night Live.”
That’s just a glimpse of the central drama, but subplots abound, including Michaels’ relationship with his semi-estranged wife, writer Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott), who may be hooking up with Dan Aykroyd (convincingly portrayed by a fast-talking Dylan O’Brien). Garret Morris (wonderfully brought to life by Lamorne Morris, no relation) is also wandering around the set, trying to figure out where he belongs in this otherwise all-white group who seem to write him only into stereotypical roles. Some of the female cast members are also trying to find their voice in this veritable frat-house, including Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Jane Curtain (Kim Matula), and Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn). To add to the lunacy, Nicholas Braun has a meta-joke, going in two roles, Jim Henson and Andy Kaufman, both of whom seem to be wandering the set, bewildered, to very different effects.
Those are just the subplots that work. Many don’t. Nicholas Podany is not as convincing as Billy Crystal, who is struggling to cut his bit to fit it into the show. Matthew Rhys also doesn’t totally land his portrayal of an angry George Carlin. There’s also a far-fetched scene in which Michaels recruits writer Alan Zweibel at a bar just minutes before showtime — a sequence that didn’t happen that way in reality. And there’s some nonsense about Johnny Carson and NBC wanting the show to fail — the reality was the opposite.
Saturday Night is a good film, but like so much art, it is surprising, engaging, and flawed, but in a way that makes it worthy of endless discussion. I don’t think any two people can have the same opinion of Saturday Night. I happen to love it, but I could have a discussion with someone who hated it for an hour and probably agree with them on every point. I think they’d probably agree with me on why I loved it. It just comes down to a discussion about values in storytelling. There are no right answers. For me, there is only — was it fascinating, and was there a lot to talk about?
"…a fast-paced whirlwind tour of a seminal moment in American culture."
