Movie Review: Saturday Night

I enjoyed watching Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night. I found it funny, energetic, and overall entertaining. But something was missing for me as I left the theater, and I couldn’t put my finger on it right away. It then came to me that watching Saturday Night was like watching the finale of a TV show or mini-series where I hadn’t watched any of the previous episodes.

I’m not the biggest TV watcher, but if I skipped an entire season of a show and then decided to only watch the finale, there wouldn’t be a lot of stakes to me. I wouldn’t know any of the character arcs, I wouldn’t understand any of the twists, and I wouldn’t have any emotional connection to anyone or anything going on. Watching Saturday Night, which chronicles the 90 minutes before the airing of the first episode of Saturday Night Live, I struggled to grasp any sort of drama or stakes in the film. We know how the film ends (SNL just recently kicked off its 50^th season), but that shouldn’t deter the film from drama and understanding the stakes of the characters and the plots. Last year, Ben Affleck’s Air, which chronicled Nike’s pursuit of signing Michael Jordan, was similar in that we knew how it was going to end, but the film focused on the journey of its characters, which made the film compelling despite knowing that Jordan is one of the best-selling athletic brands in the world.

Saturday Night does a poor job of developing any of its characters and plots. A lot of that has to do with the film’s structure. Saturday Night only covers 90 minutes of time and is roughly shot in real-time. How much can you develop in such a short period? There are several plot points, like Michaels’ troubled relationship with his wife Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott), the one-note NBC bigwigs threatening the shut production down to show a rerun of The Johnny Carson Show, Garrett Morris (played exceptionally by Lamorne Morris) trying to find the reason he’s on the show, and John Belushi not signing his contract, that are undercooked. They are all interesting, but with everything else Saturday Night has going on, every plot barely has any drama and is solved relatively easily. It felt like these plots were set up several episodes ago and were being solved here, only there were no previous episodes.

Saturday Night is chalk full of iconic personalities we’re familiar with: Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, George Carlin, Billy Crystal, Lorne Michaels, and many others appear in this movie, but only a few are treated as actual characters, particularly Michaels, who is portrayed marvelously by Gabrielle LaBelle, while others get left behind and portrayed by actors doing very good impressions of them. It felt like Reitman, who co-wrote the script with Gil Kenan, utilized the pre-conceived reputations of stars as their only character traits. Belushi is a troubled, cantankerous genius, Chase is sly, dry, arrogant, and brilliant, Aykroyd is just looking for a good time. But other characters, like Jane Curtin, Gilda Radner, and Garrett Morris are afterthoughts. We’ve come to know these stars over the years and learn of their reputations throughout the industry and that makes us associate certain character traits with them that aren’t developed in the film. Anyone who has never seen SNL or knows little about any of the actors will learn absolutely nothing about these titans of comedy watching this.

But despite its lack of character depth and thin plot points, there are a lot of good things in Saturday Night. Reitman and Kenan’s script is quick and witty, and Reitman’s direction is his best in years. There is hardly a moment to breathe during the film as something is always going wrong for Lorne and the cast. Reitman’s direction is electric, and you’re gripped the entire runtime. LaBelle gives the best performance in the movie as Michaels. It helps that he has the biggest arc and the entire film revolves around him, but LaBelle is a great screen presence and allows us into Michaels’ mind during the defining moment of his life. Of the supporting characters, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase is genuinely great, completely embodying Chase and giving a terrific supporting turn.

Saturday Night probably would have made a better mini-series. It would have allowed us to live with this cast and crew and understand the stakes more. As a movie, it’s rather thin. But it’s still an entertaining film thanks to Reitman’s direction, the talented cast, and the fun of watching a stylized recounting of one of the most important moments in TV history.

Follow Kevflix on Twitter, Instagram, and Letterboxd @kevflix, and Facebook by searching Kevflix.