'Saturday Night' Review

Funny. Fierce. Fast-paced. Forgettable.

When I was in high school and college, I went through a phase familiar to many of the writers on this site: the musical theater stage. No, I’m not going to tell you which shows, but if you’ve ever wanted to see a “whole new world,” maybe you’ll be able to figure out one of them.

If you’ve ever been a part of a show — or, even just had to host a party at your house — you’re familiar with the term “hell week.” Hell week can be a full week. Hell week can be a day. Hell week can be the final hours before a show starts. If you’ve ever been through it, you know just how stressful it is. The last minute everything. The scrambling. The screaming. Yes, maybe even some swearing. Hopefully, it all ends well and colors the whole experience positively. But, you never forget the stress in those final minutes before the curtain went up. 

That’s Saturday Night. Jason Reitman’s retelling, in real time, of the ninety minutes before the first-ever episode of Saturday Night Live bottles up all that chaos you’re familiar with, and that you maybe even dread. It’s chaotic. It’s funny. It’s well-acted. Thrilling, even.

It’s also forgettable. 

Let’s not focus on the negatives just yet — there’s plenty to be happy about here. Saturday Night is a return to form for Reitman, who has been hit or miss for the better part of a decade (some would even argue his whole career). For every Juno and Up in the Air, there is a Labor Day and The Front Runner. 

Saturday Night has much in common with The Front Runner, with the same Robert Altman-esque energy and pacing (even some of the same cast. We see you, J.K. Simmons!). Here, Reitman is having way more fun though, and it shows. The pace is frenetic, with the camera whipping around as characters move from room to room (and sometimes even outside of NBC’s 30 Rock, but less successfully). Reitman’s love for Saturday Night Live is all over the movie, from the loving recreation of the original sets to the Easter eggs he plants throughout. The costume work and score, often being performed live, also need special shout-outs here — every on-screen element of the film puts you smack-dab in the world of 1975 and it pays off handsomely. By the end of it, I, too, wanted to be wearing bell-bottom jeans and smoking. 

But, it’s the cast he’s put together that really makes the film sing. Like the first season of SNL, it’s a who’s who of the hottest young actors in Hollywood, hopefully on the same path to ascendency. They’re all bringing real people to life, often in uncanny ways, playing everyone from Chevy Chase to John Belushi. It would be so easy for this to fall into parody, but these actors are so well-cast that you simply believe they are these famous people, back in their old, 1970s forms again.

Gabriel LaBelle — who should have been nominated for his work in Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, there, I have it in print now — continues to shine here as Lorne Michaels. Cooper Hoffman, Rachel Sonnett, Dylan O’Brian, Nicholas Braun (in dual roles!) and many others bring the chaos to life, and in many ways are the bright spots of the entire film. Don’t get me wrong - Reitman’s work here is the best it’s been in a while. But this cast is what keeps you glued to the screen.

It’s a shame the rest of the film just isn’t as sticky as the cast to stay with you. Saturday Night is a fun ride, witnessing how one of the most indelible pieces of pop culture came about. But the film lacks emotional focus, or really focus of any kind. It speeds from scene to scene, giving the film energy but also robbing it of impact. And anytime characters leave 30 Rock, especially in an ice-skating scene near the end, the movie grounds to a screeching halt. You can see why these moments matter to Reitman, but, when you’re attempting to tell a story in real-time, these moments feel like “movie moments,” rather than the more authentic rest of the movie that surrounds them. 

I thankfully saw the movie with a huge SNL head who was able to explain the lore to me throughout — but that is also one of the film’s biggest problems. Without the lore being whispered in my ear throughout, I would have had no idea why certain parts of the movie mattered. The cast give their all, and Reitman’s direction is so strong, but the script’s flip-flopping between being great and being convenient can ket the whole enterprise down. But, that’s what happens when you have the writer of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as your co-writer.

There is a long history of movies that chronicle what it’s like to make a movie or TV show. Spielberg’s previously mentioned The Fabelmans is one. Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is another. Hail Caesar!, The Player, The Stunt Man — you can see the legacy that Reitman is trying to slot himself into here. As fun as his movie is, it just cannot seem to click into that next gear it needs to give itself that classic status.

For huge fans of SNL, Saturday Night is going to be like candy. For those of us more on the outside looking in, it’s a fascinating time capsule of a movie, bringing to life many of our “ten minutes to showtime!” anxieties while also failing to lock down why those feelings can be so lasting.