As a film reviewer, I recognize something good when I see it, and Jason Reitman’s picture ‘Saturday Night’, capturing the madcap race to get the very first episode of ‘Saturday Night Live’ to air back in 1975, is good. It’s very good.
However, as a fervent ‘Saturday Night Live’ fan, I have to admit, there was a wee bit of disappointment here. Not a lot. But a little.
For starters, I question the legitimacy of a plethora of details involved in the 90 minutes leading up to showtime, the ‘real time’ countdown the movie works with; I’ve read enough to know that a lot of the material is lifted from months, even years, past ‘night number one’. That said, Jason Reitman is the son of Ivan Reitman, who worked alongside many of ‘Saturday Night Live’s original cast for years, so for me, a nobody, to question accuracy? Yeah. I’ll shut up now.
In fact, in mid-review, allow me to re-think my original take.
Stuffing as much chaos as they can within the film’s tight running time does indeed make for an ambitious ride. ‘Saturday Night’ essentially tells the David-versus-Goliath tale of a creative dreamer, producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), doing battle with a network that wants to see him and his team fail. And that’s the ugly truth. SNL was created because legendary ‘Tonight Show’ host Johnny Carson was tired of NBC profiting off running re-runs of his show in the late weekend slot, and was leaning on them for more money. The network, figuring if they teased another option…say, a live variety show…could haggle a lower price. That’s it. Few expected Michaels and company to succeed. Of course, fifty years later, we fully appreciate not only THAT they did….but how it all started.
And perhaps that’s the place where I needed to be in heading into this – not looking at ‘Saturday Night’ as a tribute to the comedy institution, rather the moment in time in which it was trying to BECOME that.
The casting is brilliant. Labelle, only 22 years of age, leads the charge with a performance so inspired, he could be sniffing an Oscar nomination. Then there’s a on-point cockiness of Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), the cool and calm staff writer Rosie Suster (Rachel Sennott), the unease of Garret Morris (Lamorne Morris, no relation), the confident-yet-exhausted Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), Ebersol’s nervous wingman Dick Ebersol (Cooper Huffman), the nothing-but-sweet Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Dylan O’Brien’s so-accurate-it’s-scary Dan Aykroyd, the sadly underrated Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), Willem Dafoe’s tough-as-nails talent relations head honcho David Tebet, and J.K. Simmons’ surprisingly accurate portrayal of a very unwanted vistor to the set, the legendary Milton Berle. Add Matthew Rhys pulling off a darn fine George Carlin, the show’s very first host, and a coked-up John Belushi played to perfection by Matt Wood, and you have an ensemble that knocks it out of the park.
You don’t have to be a fan of ‘Saturday Night Live’ to appreciate ‘Saturday Night’. Geez, if we’ve learned anything here, perhaps it’s better if you’re NOT.