REVIEW: Saturday Night [2024]

Rating: R | Runtime: 109 minutes
Release Date: October 4th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Releasing
Director(s): Jason Reitman
Writer(s): Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman

Look, I don’t get half the shit they do.

It’s ninety minutes until showtime and Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) needs to cut over an hour of script, hope someone will take a free ticket to sit in the audience, and get John Belushi (Matt Wood) to sign his contract. Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) wants to work in product placement. Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien) wants to hit on every woman backstage with the same exact shtick while those he used it on previously are in earshot. And Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) wants to ensure whatever this is might at least put his pretty face in front of the right person to actually give him his big break.

Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) is questioning why a Julliard-trained actor like himself was hired for this gig. Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn) is fighting imposter syndrome. And both Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) and Jane Curtin (Kim Matula) are simply having fun. You must admire those last two since the chaotic atmosphere backstage is hardly conducive to such an in-the-moment sense of zen—especially when NBC censor Joan Carbunkle (Catherine Curtin) is putting red pen all over Michael O’Donoghue’s (Tommy Dewey) lewd scripts and NBC executive Dave Tebet’s (Willem Dafoe) mere presence has everyone thinking the executioner is biding his time before swinging the axe.

This is Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night—a love letter to the landmark first episode of “Saturday Night Live” that almost never was. Written by him and Gil Kenan from what is assuredly a laundry list of first-hand anecdotes (an umbrella “thank you” runs during the end credits for everyone who shared their stories), we mostly follow Michaels as he attempts to put out the never-ending list of fires that were mostly set by his own lofty expectations. How will he handle the lighting director quitting? How will he soothe Jim Henson’s (Nicholas Braun) trepidation that no one is taking his craft seriously? How will he break the news that some of the planned sketches won’t make it to air?

It’s a wild juggling act that succeeds precisely because it doesn’t have the time to delve too far into anyone else’s psyche but the show’s creator. Sure, we get a little taste of the conflicts (Belushi and Chase fighting) and insecurities (Newman and Morris), but those glimpses feed into his whirlwind. Yes, they are important contextually, but not emotionally. Whether those characters find their answers doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of pulling off the impossible—both because they won’t need to worry if it implodes and because you cannot narratively have that many characters finding their epiphany all at once on the same night. They are merely fuel for the fire that threatens to consume Michaels.

The escalation in suspense is therefore all his too. What at first plays like Lorne is buying his own bullshit as far as everything being okay and on-schedule quickly devolves into an ulcer-inducing level of fear. There’s a great exchange between him and Ebersol where we really get a good look inside the former’s head where it concerns the amount of confidence necessary to even think you could pull something like this off. Because it’s not about Michaels being stupid. He knows that all the signs point to NBC always wanting him to fail (they are sprinkled throughout the film). He just can’t accept that reality if he hopes to win. And the higher his fear level goes, the more his instincts take over.

So, come for the hijinks and Easter eggs (since the movie ends when Chase says, “Live from New York,” we’re privy to rehearsals of and pitches for some iconic favorites regardless of whether they were actually all swirling in this specific pool of creativity), but stay for the impact of watching an artist paint his masterpiece. The whole “It’s very Warhol” about Belushi in the bee costume is funny since this film is very Warhol in the sense that Michaels is wielding his gang of comedians, writers, and crew so that their genius will fulfill his artistic vision. He must push their buttons perfectly to alternatively assuage egos and gas them up while hoping they hit their marks. This is a portrayal of creation. Carefully laid plans subverted by spontaneity, necessity, and salesmanship. It’s a hope and a prayer.

Everyone is fantastic in it too. Smith, O’Brien, Matula, and Morris are my favorites of the main cast—mimicry or not, they’re very funny. Braun as both Henson and Andy Kaufman is a delight, his mammoth frame delivering the quietest and kindest words amidst a profane and violent circus. Andrew Barth Feldman as Michaels’ right-hand (and cousin) Neil Levy and Rachel Sennott as Lorne’s writer, wife, and partner Rosie Shuster steal scenes with their absurdity and pragmatism respectively. And LaBelle carries them all on his shoulders through every impossible success and devastating (yet not insurmountable) failure. Add Jon Batiste’s live score propelling us from one scene or room to the next and you end up just as out-of-breath as them.