Saturday Night Review: A Fun, Chaotic Trip Into Nostalgia
Theatrical Movie Review - Biopic/Comedy/Drama
My personal favorite SNL cast is from the early 90s. Phil Hartman, Nora Dunn, Jan Hooks, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers. But my dad made sure that I knew the originals. Dan Aykroyd’s Julia Child sketch remains one of the funniest things the show has ever done. And in the absolute chaos that is Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night, that sketch is used brilliantly to showcase the chaos.Â
The film takes us back to 1975, ninety minutes before the show's first episode is about to air. Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) and network executive Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) are running around the studio trying to put out fires (at least one literal one), wrangle cast members, figure out how to make the show fit into the 90 minutes allotted to them, and convince the network affiliates that the show is worth running, especially Dave Tebet (Willem Dafoe), who holds the life of the show in his hands.
The cast is also filled with nervous energy. John Belushi (Matt Wood) still hasn’t signed his contract because he feels like the whole thing is beneath him. Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) is already planning his next move beyond the show, Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien) is harassing his coworkers, Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn) is trying to prove she can do quick costume changes, and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) is trying to figure out what his job is on the show.
The pacing of Saturday Night is frenetic, filled with cross-talk, whip pans, and point-of-view shots. As the audience, we are thrust right into the middle of Lorne’s unending crisis of trying to keep the integrity of his vision while also trying to keep the standards lady (Catherine Curtain) and all of the executives mollified. The push and pull of getting something truly groundbreaking put onto network television is a powerful one, and Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan manage to create a sense of tension in the final moments, even though fifty years later, we know how it all went.
The performances in this are interesting. It’s important not to think of these so much as direct one-to-one portrayals of these well-known actors but rather as capturing their essence in the performances, and overall, it is successful. I wish there had been more time spent developing the characters of the women in the cast, particularly Gilda Radner, played beautifully by Ella Hunt, but with a cast so sprawling and in keeping the pace, it’s hard to sort that out.
There is one moment when Gilda Radner is trying to coax John Belushi to come be a part of the show. She asks if he has ever experienced nostalgia, but about the moment they are in right now. She says she can already see the two of them talking about it twenty years from that moment. Of course, neither of them made it twenty years more. Nevertheless, as the show enters its fiftieth year, their memory lives on. In the minds of many, and now in Saturday Night.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on October 13, 2024.