Jason Reitman’s Ode to Live Comedy is a Lovely Saturday Night
DIRECTED BY JASON REITMAN/2024
It is 10:00 PM on October 11th, 1975 and the culture of television is hovering on a knife’s edge. The lighting director has quit, cast members are brawling, scripts are burning in the writer’s room, studio executives hover ominously behind closed doors, and the cameras are scheduled to roll in 90 minutes. By the end of the night, this haphazard project will either result in catastrophe or a miracle. Folks, its Saturday Night.
At the center of this storm is a cocky but borderline neurotic Lorne Michaels (Gabrielle LaBelle). He is the captain of an obviously sinking ship but refuses to abandon his vessel even as the clock counts down. From the moment Michaels steps onto the studio floor, the film takes off at breakneck speed and refuses to let up on the gas. The camera hardly has time to focus before we’re shifting into the next dressing room. Flashy costume racks zoom by (shout-out to the incredible work by costume designer Danny Glicker) and conversations are drowned out in the frenetic environment. Accompanied by an anxiety-inducing score from Jon Batiste, the effect is equal parts stressful as it is invigorating.
It is difficult not to be dazzled by the sheer size of the cast that director Jason Reitman has assembled here. Predictably, there is no fair divide in screentime, and certain performances get buried under the seismic weight of the film. LaBelle as Lorne Michaels is the anchor that keeps Saturday Night grounded. He is the figurehead the audience follows through each hectic minute leading up to showtime, and LaBelle delivers a believable performance of a man unwilling to relinquish his vision. Rachel Sennott as writer Rosie Shuster is responsible for the scarce intimate moments that occur in the pauses between the hustle and bustle. Their marriage is equal parts strange as it is a beautiful meeting of creative minds.
The freshman cast of SNL itself is well represented. Chevy Chase (Corey Michael Smith), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), John Belushi (Matt Wood), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), and Jane Curtin (Kim Matula) are all present for their debut. Unfortunately, the ladies are given little to work with compared to the men here, but they manage to deliver in their short time on screen. Lamorne Morris shines as a performer that feels distinctly out of place among his coworkers for a variety of reasons. O’Brien has the necessary charisma to pull off Dan Akyroyd, and his rump-shaking sketch with the female cast members puts that on full display.
The supporting cast absolutely delivers here as well. Playing double duty in his brief appearances as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, Nicholas Braun does respectable justice to both icons. Willem Dafoe is delightfully diabolical as the sleazy studio executive David Tebet that lurks around every corner reminding Michaels that he is destined to fail. Equally as fun to loathe is J.K. Simmons as Mr. Television himself, Milton Berle. He delivers some of the film’s best lines as he strolls around the NBC building, and his interaction with an equally narcissistic Chevy Chase is a highlight. A special recognition goes to Andrew Barth Feldman, who is oddly lovable and hilarious in his brief scenes as Neil Levy.
A self-proclaimed superfan of SNL, it is obvious that Reitman is engaging is some hero-worship and operating from a biased lens. Events are embellished for effect, and he strays from truly yanking back the curtain and ruining the magic too much. There are glimpses of the problematic culture behind the scenes. This is most notable when Garrett Morris utilizes a musical warm-up to poke at the racial homogeneity of the show. It feels inherently wrong to laugh too hard at the numerous coke jokes, especially when they revolve around Belushi. The female cast fades too smoothly into the background as the men take center stage, and each laments the stereotypical roles they are assigned. For better or worse, the film moves too quickly to truly sit and ponder on the show’s problematic history. This will certainly be a complaint from audiences, but consider this: do we truly believe a white male director is the correct vessel through which to analyze these issues in the first place?
What Reitman presents here is the monolithic mythos of Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels is Prometheus delivering the gift of live comedy to us common mortals sitting at home in front of our television. We aren’t here for a history lesson. Saturday Night sacrifices detailed accuracy to capture the revolutionary spirit of a legendary Studio 8H: a bustling studio brimming with frantic energy, exhausted writers pacing the halls, an unexperienced cast overflowing with talent, and one man that can conduct them all. It is less about what actually went on behind the scenes and more of an introspection on the grand legacy of this show.
No matter if you hated it back then, loved it a decade ago, or are ambivalent towards it now, no one can refute the impact SNL has made on pop culture. This is Reitman’s love ballad to a creative project that is still kicking even half a century later. There are notes here that land while others fall flat. Some sketches kill and others bomb. What really comes across in Saturday Night is the chaotic process that is creating art. It is messy, it is a divine miracle, and hopefully it somehow works. Even 50 years later, when Andy Kaufman goes on stage to lip-sync a cartoon theme song, the audience still laughs along. That right there is the legacy of comedy.