Saturday Night (2024) Review: Jason Reitman’s Entertaining Backstage Comedy Boasts Solid Ensemble Cast
The clock is ticking for Saturday Night. It’s 10 pm as we see Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) become restless about his soon-to-be-aired first episode of NBC’s Saturday Night. And he has only 90 minutes left to put everything together. His boss Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) believes in him, even though there’s a trace of scepticism about Michaels insisting on stuffing all his planned segments for tonight’s inaugural show.
The movie takes place predominantly in the studio — Studio 8H, to be exact — in the NBC building as Jason Reitman, returning to the director’s chair after sitting out Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and giving way for his co-writer Gil Kenan to direct instead, navigates Michaels’ ordeal using plenty of long takes and tracking shots. I thought Reitman might go for the Birdman route by filming Saturday Night entirely in one continuous, unbroken long take. Personally, that would be more technically fascinating if he does so.
Going back to the story, Michaels is frustrated enough to deal with all the egos, demands and whatnot from his crew members to the cast of young performers. The latter includes John Belushi (Matt Wood), whose wildly erratic behaviour often makes things difficult and he has yet to sign his contract even if the show is about to start. Then, there are Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson (interestingly, both roles are played by Nicholas Braun) and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), just to name a few.
NBC executive David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) soon shows up in the studio and notices all the chaos, making him wonder if Michaels can make the show happen in time. But he already has a contingency plan: If Michaels’ show fails, he can replace the slot by simply re-running The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Still, Michaels refuses to give up and he’s confident his Saturday Night show will happen one way or another.
Believe it or not, that’s how the SNL (it was originally known as Saturday Night during its initial run) happened before the first episode was aired on television in 1975 and the rest, as they say, is history. SNL remains a cultural milestone in the history of television, even though the long-running sketch show no longer has, well, groundbreaking or as funny as it used to be. Reitman’s version, of course, has a fair share of dramatisation added to this biographical comedy-drama. I admit the movie does lull in places, which at times, makes me feel what should have been a chaotic night doesn’t look like one. This is especially true in the uneven midsection, which benefits better if Reitman tightens the pace.
Like the actual SNL where the show took the risk of hiring then-up-and-coming comedians to make it happen, Reitman applies a similar approach for enlisting a cast of mostly unknowns to play the real-life SNL stars in Saturday Night. Gabriel LaBelle does a good job of capturing the sense of uncertainty and frustration of a producer trying to get things done amidst the pressure cooker situation. Cory Michael Smith excels in emulating Chevy Chase’s mix of comedic charisma and arrogance while Matt Wood certainly nails the role of the mercurial John Belushi.
Then, there’s Rachel Sennott giving strong support as one of the crew members, Rosie Shuster while Dylan O’Brien surprises me with a better-than-expecting performance as Dan Aykroyd and even a dead ringer for the young comedian at the time while successfully capturing the star’s quirky charm. The rest of the cast such as Nicholas Braun hits all the right notes playing the eccentric Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, Willem Dafoe in his no-nonsense TV executive role as David Tebet, J.K. Simmons as the cocky legendary star and comedian Milton Berle a.k.a. Uncle Miltie and Mr Television, and Lamorne Morris as the smooth-talking comedian and singer Garrett Morris.
Finally, Reitman deserves praise for raising the stakes in the third act as we see the increasingly baffling Michaels finding himself on the brink of collapse, only to manage to pull through at the last minute, leading to the opening segment of Saturday Night‘s first episode premiering on national television. It was a perfect end for the movie and despite the shortcomings, Saturday Night is a nostalgia done right, reminding us how the show has changed the way we see live sketch comedies during its golden years.
