I was supposed to like this movie. Embarrassing as it is to admit today, I’m as big of an Saturday Night Live fan as your average middle-aged white man. My hyper-fixation with the SNL mythology came before my Kennedy obsession and after my Mary-Kate and Ashley one. Aside from spending every Saturday night in the mid-aughts staying up until 11:30pm to watch Bill Hader’s latest impersonation and The Lonely Island’s digital shorts, I also wore out my father’s box set of the ‘Best of SNL.’ The collection contained clips of the most iconic sketches dating all the way back to 1975. While I don’t keep up as much with the show today, I occasionally spend my Sunday mornings catching up on last night’s episode via Instagram Reels. Suffice it to say, when the press release dropped, “Jason Reitman to direct film about first ‘Saturday Night Live’ broadcast,” I knew I would be seated.
My first mistake was giving Reitman the benefit of the doubt, I should have never expected the director of Men, Women, and Children to create something with substance. I thought, given his nepo-baby access to people like Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray, that he could conjure up a worthwhile story. My second mistake was assuming that the stacked ensemble, including Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien, and Kaia Gerber, would have anything other than terminal iPhone face. My gravest error was holding out hope that the once-in-a-life-time electricity and life-or-death stakes that existed on the real opening night in October 1975 would be able to be replicated and captured on film. I will be the first to begrudgingly admit that I was wrong on all fronts.
Because Saturday Night is essentially a bottle-movie taking place in real time—the final 90 minutes leading up to the first live broadcast—it relies on the gaggle of characters and their dynamics to captivate the audience. The casting here is impressive, and probably the strongest aspect of the production. Most of the actors really do resemble the physicality of their real-life counterparts, notably Matt Wood as John Belushi, and Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner. Nicholas Braun inexplicably plays two characters, probably just because he looks like both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. Others put in extra work to nail down an accurate voice and demeanour, like Matthew Rhys‘ George Carlin, and Lamorne Morris’ Garrett Morris. In the worst cases, such as O’Brien’s transformation into Aykroyd, is about as believable as, well, an SNL impression. O’Brien—who is usually an impressive performer—was brought down by the cheap and horribly laid wig and crazy-glue moustache. Sennott had the fortune of playing a character, Rosie Shuster, who is not a recognizable face, because the perm was atrocious and laughable. Condolences to the real life Rosie, who actually had really cute hair.
When the performances were good, they were really good. Cory Michael Smith, only previously known to me as the twink son from May December, embodied perhaps the most daunting role of Chevy Chase. The reason Chevy’s brief stint on SNL is well-regarded even now is because: a.) he was super hot in the 70’s and b.) his arrogance and superiority-complex made him the funniest motherfucker on the cast. Smith’s portrayal of him was seeped in confidence, effortlessly pulling off the ‘I can say and act however I want because I am the most valuable person in this room’ vibe. Cooper Hoffman also stood out as producer Dick Ebersol, a role that existed to explain the stakes to the audience on repeat. But Hoffman takes a page out of his dad, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s, notebook, and turns a throwaway sidekick role into a captivating and crucial player. It’s a shame none of these characters were fleshed out or developed. These moments of heightened cosplay were bit parts at best—maybe sharing a collective twenty minutes screen-time between them. Ultimately, the story is about Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), the least funny and least interesting part of SNL, even today.
Every ten minutes or so, a timer flashes on screen, reminding the viewers that showtime is approaching but holy smokes they are no where near ready to go to air! What ever will they do? The clock is a tool—just like Lorne’s beads of sweat, or a phone call from the NBC suits—to add anxiety and build tension. The forced suspense only makes the outcome of the story more abundantly obvious. We all already know the show will make it to air and stay on air for the next fifty years. The stakes feel utterly futile. I could not have been sitting further away from the edge of my seat. That conundrum has rarely affected any biopic, adaptation, or retelling of history in the past, but it does so in flying colours here, why? Even during the closest calls—falling lights nearly killing the talent, Belushi going AWOL, the sound system cutting out—there is not an ounce of emotion present. I can visually see with my eyes that Lorne is stressed out. I can audibly hear with my ears that the studio is ready to pull the plug any minute. But I can’t feel a single thing.
Most of the comedic beats in the film (and they attempt to squeeze in hundreds) are better off described as an inside joke. Unless you know the history and pick up on the reference, it’s nothingness. Even me, as someone who does know the history and picked up on the references, rarely let out a chuckle. There are a couple (literally like 2) moments where they manage to hit the nostalgia g-spot and you can feel a touch of magic. With about ten minutes to air and about ten minutes left in the film, the whole cast and crew decide to work together to reach the finish line which finally offers a modicum of optimism and synergy. Saturday Night tries to evoke the excitement of unity like in the third act of Broadcast News, but rather it ends up channeling the pseudo-emotional eye-roll of an episode of The Newsroom. I was supposed to like this movie, I should have liked this movie. Instead, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was less a film and more a figment of Lorne Michaels holding a gun to my head saying, “Laugh, Bitch!”
