‘Saturday Night’ movie review: Jason Reitman’s serious message to SNL is brilliantly broken

A scene from ‘Saturday Night’ Photo Credit: Sony Pictures

A llama is loose in the hallway of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a lighting rig is threatening to destroy the cast, and drug-addicted John Belushi wonders whether dressing as a bee on live television will be the end of his life. Definitely a low point. This is Jason Reitman’s mad streak Saturday nightAn anarchic fever dream set ninety minutes before the debut of NBC’s iconic late-night live sketch comedy show on October 11, 1975, it is a whirlpool of ego, improvisation, and existential dread, circling the figure of a deer in headlights. Producer Lorne Michaels, played with deliciously anti-charisma by Gabriel LaBelle.

The film is, in short, a love letter to creative disaster – the kind that produces either profound genius or utter disaster, often both. Employing the single-shot conceit (or a convincing illusion thereof), Reitman drags us into the bustling corridors of Studio 8H, past simmering anger and simmering anxieties. The camera doesn’t see that much of Hertl, a ubiquitous third wheel in this dysfunctional family reunion of comedy misfits. The effect is disorienting, sometimes exhausting, but undeniably compelling.

Reitman’s real-time countdown is as much a cinematic exercise in anxiety as it is a study of nascent genius. The pace evokes a kind of creative purgatory, where every ticking second reminds the cast and crew that their half-baked dream is about to be judged by millions. Ostensibly very high, the stakes are mostly symbolic – will network executives shut down this comedy experiment before it even gets started? Will Milton Berle, played with cartoonish lechery by JK Simmons, succeed in dragging this ragtag group back to the Stone Age of television?

LaBelle’s Michaels is charmingly ambiguous. He claims he has a vision for the show (something “postmodern” and “Warhol-esque”), but he’s just as intrigued by the concept as everyone else. He is at once the reluctant shepherd of this madness and its unwitting victim. LaBelle plays a kind of quiz resignation with him, in which he watches his carefully constructed house of cards collapse in real time. In contrast, Rachel Sennott’s Rosie Shuster offers some down-to-earth practicality. She’s a realist versus Michaels’ idealist, who casually exposes her self-seriousness with a raised eyebrow or a barbed comment.

The film’s cast brings “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” to life in ways that feel authentic without falling into obvious impressionism. Dylan O’Brien’s Dan Aykroyd oscillates between nerdy sincerity and frat-boy unpredictability. Matt Wood’s Belushi is utterly disillusioned, his every movement weighted with the realization his comedic fate involves antennae. Cory Michael Smith’s Chevy Chase, meanwhile, exudes cocky self-satisfaction, and Tommy Dewey wields Michael O’Donoghue’s sarcastic wit with relentless abandon.

A scene from ‘Saturday Night’ Photo Credit: Sony Pictures

Still everyone’s attention turned to men snlThe film can’t entirely shake its tendency to push its women to the periphery. Ella Hunt’s saccharine take on Gilda Radner barely registers beyond the extent of her few lines. Similarly, Jane Curtin (Kim Matula) and Laraine Newman (Emily Fearon) are reduced to fleeting cameos, missing a crucial opportunity to explore their integral roles in the show’s early success.

This indicates an imbalance Saturday nightThe bigger issue: its tendency to portray anarchy as a purely masculine endeavor. For every scene of camaraderie or artistic success, there is another scene where women are sidelined as if their contribution to this crazy experiment was somehow incidental. Reitman occasionally alludes to this criticism but the film never fully addresses its implications.

still what Saturday night The lack of parity is compensated for by sheer energy. Jon Batiste’s jazz-inflected score – recorded live, naturally – gives the film its rhythm, its syncopated beats matching the on-screen frenzy, sometimes drowning out the dialogue.

A scene from ‘Saturday Night’ Photo Credit: Sony Pictures

For all its dramatic embellishments, including a grim-faced caricature of Willem Dafoe, the film reflects an essential truth about creative endeavors: The line between ingenuity and disaster is often imperceptibly thin. This notion becomes clear in the film’s final moments, as the cast gathers on stage, the clock finally strikes 11:30, and those immortal words – “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” – ring out.

whether you want to see Saturday night As a sobering tribute to the volatile alchemy of live television or a warning of the dangers of worshiping at the altar of chaos, its flaws fit awkwardly.

Like the fateful night it seeks to capture, the film is a patchwork of nerves and nostalgia, stitched together with duct tape and desperation. Yet somehow, despite all reason and numerous production disasters, it stumbles into showtime – battered, breathless and stubborn, (A)stay.

Saturday Night is currently available to stream on BookMyShow