‘Saturday Night’ Review – Jason Reitman’s Ode To SNL’s First Episode Takes Too Long To Land Its Killer Punchline [TIFF 2024]

Here’s the situation: The first episode of a new comedy show on NBC is set to go live in 90 minutes. Unfortunately, the cast and crew are hitting a few snags. For starters, the network’s executives would like for the show’s 30-year-old creator and producer, Lorne Michaels, to lock a script for the broadcast, something he’s unwilling to do because it’s simply not that kind of show. (Did we mention it’s live?) Rosie Shuster, who is either Lorne’s wife or fiancé – they keep going back and forth on whether or not they’re married – is a writer on the show, and she can’t decide what last name she wants to appear when the credits roll. Don Pardo, the show’s announcer, can’t figure out how the f*** to pronounce “Aykroyd.” Meanwhile, Aykroyd, first name Dan, is flirting with every single woman on set; he might have something going on with Rosie, by the way. Jim Henson is concerned that he and his Muppets don’t have script pages yet. Andy Kaufman is walking around the studio like an alien; he can’t find the bathroom for the life of him.

Elsewhere, Garrett Morris is asking everyone and their mother if they know what they were hired for, something he can’t figure out for himself. NBC’s censor, who stalks the halls prior to the show to ensure that everything making it to air is G-rated, is an Evangelical Christian who finds farts offensive. Dick Ebersol, NBC’s Director of Weekend Late Night Programming, wants the show’s cast to promote Polaroid due to the in-show ad revenue it will generate, helping to balance out its unexpected costs. Lorne’s cousin, Neil Levy, smoked some Tahitian weed and thinks his face is inside-out. A few writers have somehow misplaced 20-something gallons of fake blood. A poor page has been standing on a street corner in the mid-October cold for hours, and no one will take his “Free Comedy Show!” flyers. Billy Crystal refuses to do his set in less than four minutes; that is, if it even makes it into the show. A couch just caught on fire after the lighting rig fell from the rafters. Milton Berle, who isn’t involved in the show’s production in any sense, just pulled his dick out to intimidate Chevy Chase while he flirts with his fiancé, Jacqueline Carlin. Oh, and John Belushi has yet to sign his contract. 

In essence, whatever feelings you felt while reading that – exasperation; curiosity; excitement; fury – will serve as bellwethers for how you respond to much of Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, a chronicle of the chaos that unfolded mere hours before the first episode of ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Filmed with handheld cameras holding 16mm film that would ostensibly authenticate the appearance of a recorded document in 1975, Saturday Night is a stylish work of reminiscence that is scattered and often exhausting. It’s also frequently energetic and hilarious. It’s a lot like an average episode of ‘Saturday Night Live’: Some of it works wonders, while a majority of it doesn’t. 

While the real-life show is approaching its 50th season, it was an unknown quantity called ‘Saturday Night’ in the mid-1970s, a name that leads a security guard hassling Lorne Michaels (The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle) to ask, “What, the whole night?” when Michaels tells him what show he runs. It’s a 60/40 split between sarcasm and genuine confusion, respectively, levied onto a green producer who looks as though someone dusted pepper on his face in order to convincingly prove that he can, indeed, grow a five o’clock shadow. But it’s also a fair question considering how little most people inside NBC’s headquarters know about what exactly ‘Saturday Night’ is. Dick Ebersol (Licorice Pizza’s Cooper Hoffman) wishes Lorne would tell him; Lorne is a little more concerned about the fact that he has 100-plus sketch ideas and nowhere to put them all.

The show’s cast, meanwhile, is made up of a murderers’ row of up-and-coming comedians, many of which are played by a murderers’ row of up-and-coming actors. Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) is a writer for the show, not one who was hired purely because of her nuptials to Michaels, but because of sheer talent. Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith in a standout performance) is a swinging dick of a comic who has yet to go on to make National Lampoon’s Vacation or Fletch but knows that he’s primed for success, if not solely because of his dashing good looks. Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien, stellar) is in a similar boat, having yet to star in Ghostbusters or Coneheads but trusting that his charm and humor will get him there. Also populating the eighth and ninth floors of 30 Rock are Andy Kaufman (Nicholas Braun), Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun… yes, again) Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), an ever-moody John Belushi (Matt Wood), Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany, nailing the voice), and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris). It’s as if Sesame Street had a cocaine habit and threw up all over West 49th and Fifth.

Elsewhere, the adults are lingering just outside of the room, either itching for the show to fail or praying that it will manage to be a hit. George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) is set to be the show’s debut guest host, but he can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that a bunch of 30-year-olds are putting this thing together and would kill for there to be more blow in his dressing room. The man who’s been praying on its downfall ever since ‘Saturday Night’ was greenlit is David Tebet (Willem Dafoe), an NBC executive who has little faith in Michaels’ grand vision despite not knowing what it is. (Sensing a theme here?) His presence, and that of few others like him, sees Saturday Night essentially boil down to being a chase movie, the familiar likes of which chart a “will they make it in time?!” journey for its protagonists while those rooting for the opposition lie in wait bearing sinister grins. Think Run Lola Run meets Good Night, and Good Luck, and you’re just about halfway there.

Where Saturday Night falters is in its overall design, seeing that there’s only so much running a person (or cast) can do before a premise can wear itself out with its repetition and its reliance on imitation, both of which Reitman and his creative partner on the last two Ghostbusters requels, Gil Kenan, rely on in spades. They manage to expertly stage the backstage disarray to start; a “minutes to air” clock runs throughout the film, occasionally ticking off 60 seconds at a time in an effort to up the pressure that Michaels and co. are under. The mayhem that this review began by recounting all unfolds in rapid succession, with only occasional respite coming in the form of a stairwell conversation between Michaels and Ebersol, or an awkward back-and-forth between Morris and musical guest Billy Preston (Jon Batiste, who also orchestrated the film’s score). But Saturday Night primarily operates at the pace of a whip pan, and not just because that seems to be the only camera movement Reitman’s go-to cinematographer, Eric Steelberg, was permitted to pull during filming. 

Furthermore, much of what Reitman and Kenan focus on can be summarized in a book that is far more readable than Saturday Night is watchable: James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ “Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests.” If the many hijinks that have NBC’s top brass itching to simply click play on a ‘Tonight Show’ rerun weren’t pulled directly from that text, then they’re certainly inspired by its revelations, and their portrayals are done to death. Here’s hoping you’re familiar with John Belushi’s (Matt Wood) disdain for his now-infamous bee costume. In contrast, say you weren’t familiar with how endearing Gilda Radner was when she wasn’t in character as Roseanne Roseannadanna. Saturday Night lends its attention to that fact… for about two minutes, otherwise reducing Radner and her female co-stars to background extras.

The film’s guise as a ticking-clock thriller has its moments to shine, and as the minutes run off to the point where the decision between going live and defaulting to Johnny Carson becomes a last-second one, you might catch yourself genuinely unsure as to whether or not this rinky-dink operation will ever have its moment in the spotlight. There’s just one problem: We’re well aware of how successful ‘SNL’ has become, how Lorne Michaels has become a B-side household name, and how, even if the executives who wanted to see the show fail had their moment on Oct. 11, 1975, we’d see an information dump for the ages once the dust settled, telling us that ‘Saturday Night’ did, in fact, eventually make it to air. While Saturday Night is hell-bent on making its well-manufactured stakes the calling card you walk away admiring, its real strong suit comes in the form of mimicry. While excessive in how prominent they are in the film’s plot, I found myself howling for the final half-hour as iconic moments unfolded in due course. From Garrett Morris singing “I’m gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see!” to Andy Kaufman’s performance of the ‘Mighty Mouse’ theme song, Reitman and co. are exacting in their depiction of bits audiences will recognize, even if the story’s more unknown elements crumble under the weight of such familiar brilliance. 

There’s something to be said for being able to scratch the peculiar itch that is nostalgia, but Saturday Night is ultimately nothing more than a highlight reel with the occasional detour to something audiences are less acquainted with. It’s evident that Reitman – son of Ivan, who worked with a number of the actors who were part of SNL’s original cast – has a deep affection for the show that brought the likes of Dan Aykroyd, Billy Crystal, Bill Murray, and many more into his father’s life, but rose-colored glasses can only take you so far, especially when you’re working to dramatize an already-dramatic historical document. Ultimately, Saturday Night is what would have happened if Lorne Michaels had refused to cut down his show that night in 1975: An overstuffed, over-chaotic, and occasionally funny piece of art that would be lost to time if not for how much so many have invested in it already.

Saturday Night held its Canadian Premiere as part of the Special Presentations section at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The film will debut exclusively in theaters on October 11, 2024, courtesy of Sony Pictures. 

Director: Jason Reitman

Writers: Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman

Rated: R

Runtime: 109m