‘Saturday Night’ is an account of the hectic 90 minutes leading up to the moment when either television history would be made or audiences would watch a taped recording.
Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) had a vision and studio politics gave him one shot to make Saturday Night Live happen. Recruiting a cast of hungry young comedians — Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), John Belushi (Matt Wood), Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn) and Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) — and a wealth of additional performers, Michaels was sure he had a hit on his hands… if they could get to air. The period before they go live is unbelievably chaotic as Michaels runs around trying to put out dozens of little fires, including a llama delivery, lost comedian, AWOL light operator, cast conflicts, too tight costume changes, excessive programming and the list goes on. In the meantime, his wife and writing partner, Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott), is tasked with wrangling the ever-temperamental Belushi who refuses to sign his contract, while NBC’s studio executive David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) still has the ability to shut it all down and show a Johnny Carson rerun instead.
To call this the wild west of television would be an understatement. It’s not just a matter of everything going wrong, but of them not being ready so close to showtime. They’re still laying bricks for the mainstage seconds before camera and Belushi’s whereabouts aren’t even known when they start the first sketch. Co-writer and director Jason Reitman deftly manages to capture the frantic energy, which emanates from the screen as every character is abuzz with excitement and anxiety. Oddly, while all the behind-the-scenes commotion and clashes are riveting, the attempts to recreate some of the sketches prepared for the debut episode fall flat. That said, they casted actors who look remarkably like the people they are representing, which goes a long way in making the film feel authentic. In the end, we all know Saturday Night Live went to air, making history and lasting 49 seasons and counting. But even their great writers couldn’t have scripted that night as the reality exceeded anyone’s imagination for potential catastrophe.
Saturday Night had its Canadian premiere in the Special Presentations programme at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Read other reviews from the festival.
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott and Willem Dafoe
