‘Saturday Night’ review: There’s magic in it

Let’s be clear: “Saturday Night,” now in theaters, doesn’t even dare to distill the nearly 50-year comedy history of “Saturday Night Live” into one little movie. Instead, Jason Reitman, who energetically directed and co-wrote the film with Gil Kenan, zeroes in on Oct. 11, 1975, as the then-unknown SNL players prepare to go on air on NBC for the very first time.
We never see the actual show, just the lead-up where panic is the default position as creative chaos takes hold. That’s a ton to cram into a scattershot 109 minutes, putting Reitman in the role of ringmaster, cracking the whip just to keep the actors in line.
Cue the applause for Gabriel LaBelle, who nailed the role of the young Steven Spielberg in “The Fabelmans” and now works the same rejuvenating sorcery on SNL’s forever producer Lorne Michaels before his deadpan froze into caricature.
Reitman wants to mainline that immersive, real-time feeling when TV comedy history is made by and for the first generation who grew up watching TV. It’s the cool kids kicking out the geezers. And the movie feeds off that exhilaration. That’s a ton to cram into a scattershot 109 minutes, leaving many of the cast struggling to fully or even partly register.
Among those that do are Cory Michael Smith who finds the arrogant jerk hiding just under the charm boy surface of Chevy Chase, who sees his future in Hollywood before he even does his first show. Even better is Dylan O’Brien—yup, the cute kid from “Teen Wolf” and “The Maze Runner” trilogy— who is revelatory as Dan Aykroyd, catching the sweet mischief and sharp comic instincts of a peacemaker who always goes deeper than an easy laugh.
Not so attuned is Matt Wood, whose John Belushi is written and played as a lumpish depressive who only comes alive on camera or when he is trying to punch the smirk off Chase’s face. You can’t blame him for that or for resenting having to dress up as a bumble bee. Garrett Morris, played by “Fargo” Emmy winner Lamorne Morris (no relation), also wonders if being Black is the only reason he’s on the show.
What’s shocking and frustrating is the way the script insultingly ignores the women on the show, leaving Ella Hood with almost nothing to do as the legendary Gilda Radner. Kim Matula as Jane Curtin and Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman fare even worse.
The one exception is the wonderful Rachel Sennott who steals every scene she’s in as Rosie Shuster, the writer/producer who was married to Michaels at the time, though that didn’t stop her from flirting with Aykroyd with her husband barely out of sight.
Things get livelier behind the scenes when showrunner Dick Ebersol (a terrific Cooper Hoffman) thinks they’ll never pull off this experiment on live television. Neither does NBC talent honcho Dave Tebet (an aces Willem Dafoe), who’s ready to pull the plug and sub in Johnny Carson rerun, leaving Michaels struggling to hide a nervous breakdown.
The movie goes light on the sex and drugs for which SNL became infamous, but it gleefully takes shots at big names, including guest host George Carlin (a slyly wicked Matthew Rhys) the comic icon who head writer Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) calls a “ponytailed vulture feeding off the corpse of Lenny Bruce.” Ouch!
And it’s ouch again when the great J.K. Simmons skewers the comic schtick of Milton Berle, the old-school jokester who represents everything the SNL gang wants to see gone.
Even Muppet man Jim Henson is derided, but Nicholas Braun (the immortal Cousin Greg on “Succession”) plays him with winning guilelessness and returns to portray self-described anti-comedian Andy Kaufman, bringing down the hose lip-syncing the jaunty theme from “Mighty Mouse.” Braun is double dynamite, just the blend of sugar and spice the movie needs.
When it’s really cooking, “Saturday Night” comes close to getting at the the show’s lasting appeal to young people across the country who long for a wild, electric night in New York City and had not seen anything yet that resembled them on television.
If your pulse beats faster just hearing the words, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night,” this is the movie for you. Flaws and all, there’s magic in it.