Saturday Night
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Rating: R
Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes
Stars: Gabriel LaBelle, Willem Dafoe, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, J.K. Simmons
Writers: Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman
Director: Jason Reitman
Reviewed at The Toronto International Film Festival
For the record, despite what the movie studio may tell you, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night is emphatically not an accurate, minute-by-minute, behind-the-scenes account of the hectic hour-and-a-half before NBC’s Saturday Night hit the air live in October 1975.
The mere logistics of all the participants being in all the places depicted within that compact time frame rules that out. At least one character is shown to be in two places at once.
But as Emily Litella would say, “Never mind.”
Funny, poignant, and pulsing with the kind of urgent energy that made those early days of the show a touchstone for a generation, Saturday Night plays like an episode of The West Wing if The West Wing were a cocaine-fueled freight train barreling toward a collapsed bridge pulling a boxcar of nitroglycerin.
Young producer Lorne Michaels (The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle) has been handed a plum, but fraught, job at NBC: to create and produce a weekly live 90-minute comedy/music show to replace reruns of The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson. The first show goes live at 11:30 p.m., but as we enter Studio 8H at 10, the set is still being built, the sketches are still being rewritten, the lights have not been hung, the sound system is wonky, the censor is redlining lines right and left, John Belushi, who has not yet signed his contract, is outside ice skating…and a network executive (an oily Willem Dafoe) is lurking in the shadows, ready to pull the plug on this whole circus up till 11:29:29.
With occasional cutaways to a countdown clock, Saturday Night director Jason Reitman (Ghostbusters: Afterlife) cranks up the tension as his camera follows Michaels through the most hectic moments of his life.
The pace and editing here are flawless, and the 1970s vibe is palpable — but the success or failure of this entire enterprise rests entirely on the ability of a half-dozen or so young actors to convince us they are the embodiment of a team of entertainers who seared their persona into the American psyche.
On that score, it is hard to imagine a more rousing success. Cory Michael Smith (Carol) carries the haughty superiority of Chevy Chase, but also brings the undeniable charm that made him SNL’s first breakout star. Ella Hunt’s Gilda Radner is hilarious and vulnerable. Dylan O’Brien’s Dan Aykroyd is everybody’s friend, yet vaguely aloof. Kim Matula’s Jane Curtin evokes the comic stridency that would in a year catapult her to the Weekend Update desk. Emily Fairn, subversively funny, reminds us of what a treasure Laraine Newman was even as she worked in the shadows of Curtin and Radner. And Matt Wood, as troubled genius John Belushi, not only perfects the comedian’s familiar arched eyebrow, but also pulls off a singularly hysterical recreation of a first-night SNL skit.
Most striking, though, is Lamorne Morris (New Girl) as Garrett Morris (no relation), the original cast’s lone African American. An immensely gifted comedian, writer, Julliard-trained opera singer, and actor, Morris was woefully underused throughout his SNL tenure – the notable exception being his portrayal of Dominican baseball player Chico Escuela (“Bezball been berry, berry good to me.”) Wandering through this wilderness of hyperactive white comedians, the self-contained, pensive Morris can’t help but wonder why he was hired in the first place. He’s also dreading the actual answer. When, near the end, Morris finally gets to show his stuff, the effect is the film’s most cathartic moment.
As Michaels flits through the teeming studio, he encounters less-dominant SNL figures, each one as lovingly cast as the stars: Nicholas Braun (Succession) does double duty as both Muppets creator Jim Henson and first-night guest Andy Kaufman (Braun’s rendition of Kaufman’s signature “Mighty Mouse” routine could not be more perfect). Nicholas Podany captures the youthful ambition of Billy Crystal. Taylor Gray totally nails the cockiness of Al Franken. Brian Welch resonates remarkably as announcer Don Pardo. And as SNL’s first chief writer — the troubled genius Michael O’Donoghue — Tommy Dewey chillingly evokes the eccentric, often cruel personality that eventually led to his departure from the series he helped create.
Here’s what makes me a little sad: Starting in 2026, the Oscars will begin awarding a statuette for casting. If the category existed today, Saturday Night’s casting director, John Papsidera (Oppenheimer, Batman Begins) would be the runaway favorite.
Perhaps Papsidera’s ultimate stroke of casting genius was in hiring Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) to play Mr. Television, Milton Berle – who stops by to wish the cast well (sort of) while taping a variety show in a nearby studio. Toothy, smarmy, slicked down and a little sickening, Simmons’ Berle is here only to reassure himself that the world is not quite ready to bury forever his pratfalling, seltzer-in-the-pants schtick (although there is undeniable satisfaction in witnessing Berle’s abuse of Chevy Chase, a guy we’ve just seen take down his fellow cast members with cruel efficiency).
Of course, there is no record of Uncle Miltie really being on hand, and trust me, there was just one TV extravaganza taping at 30 Rock around midnight on October 11, 1975. But that matters not. Berle’s presence here draws a bright line between what television’s variety show format was before that fateful night – tightly scripted, safe, and sanitary – and the subversive, barely-controlled mayhem the genre would henceforth aspire to (Of course, the Smothers Brothers, whose politically charged variety show scandalized CBS in the late 1960s, might argue otherwise – but even The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour adhered to the time-honored vaudevillian skit-song-skit-song format, with all the routines having a beginning, a middle, and an end).
If you’re one of those people who grumps “SNL hasn’t been funny since 1980,” Saturday Night is precisely the SNL movie you’ve been waiting for. And if you’ve stuck with the show like a bad boyfriend for the past half-century, there’s even more reason to celebrate this frenetic, fantasized fan letter.
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