TIFF 2024: Live From Toronto, It’s ‘Saturday Night’

By Lindsay Traves | Film | September 16, 2024 |

By Lindsay Traves | Film | September 16, 2024 |

On October 11, 1975, a ragtag gaggle of comedy hopefuls came together to make a show that’d still be relevant decades on. Saturday Night Live now might populate discourse on why we let Elon Musk host, or why Chloe Troast wasn’t asked to return, but before all that it was a pipe dream in the mind of a wistful Lorne Michaels who was laser-focused on making himself an entertainment success.

Jason Reitman herds his eclectic ensemble to tell a coked-up fast-paced version of Saturday Night Live’s first sprint to air. Squished on all sides by the men upstairs, faithless producers, rumors of bargaining strategies, and a cast of self-centered quirky comics, a young Lorne (Gabriel LaBelle) races against a ticking ninety-minute clock to get his show on the air and change late-night television forever. Told in real-time with title cards of a ticking clock, Saturday Night chronicles the disaster of competing egos and budget restrictions that made the pilot episode of the sketch comedy show a miracle, doing its best to shove every anecdote, every coulda-shoulda-woulda, and every complaint about the behind-the-scenes drama that made and broke a generation of careers.

Saturday Night feels like an oral history told by way of Birdman or Uncut Gems. The difference between those stories and this one is the stakes: we know the show makes it to air. Saturday Night Live isn’t an obscure show that might have been; it’s a long-running mega-giant that’s a staple in popular culture. The mess that led to its creation highlights the fragility of the media-making process, but never once do we fear they won’t make it; the movie only showing disappointment through the eyes of Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany), who is unceremoniously cut when refusing to give up too much of his time. And while the stakes are ever low for the audience, they only seem high for some of the characters (mostly Lorne), the others are portrayed as self-centered jerk-offs with not a care in the world, the film choosing not to examine the volatility of the careers of New York stand-up comedians. Of course, we’re enamored with the ensemble’s relationships and love for each other, but none of them seem worried and act more as barriers to air for Lorne than hopefuls looking for a new way in.

Though the hour-and-a-half up to air is mostly Lorne rushing to make his vision come to life, there is time spent showcasing the interpersonal relationships of many of the cast and crew in ways that interrogate media, if only a little bit. Jane Curtain (Kim Matula) contends with aging, Dan Akroyd (Dylan O’Brien) isn’t always comfortable, and John Belushi (Matt Woods) struggles to give in to slapstick sketches when he wants to be a serious actor. Lorne and his wife, Rosie (Rachel Sennott) try desperately to play to each ego and get the sort of laughs and attention these magical young people are able to elicit. And that’s the magic. Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) commands attention with the delivery of Alan Zweibel’s (Josh Brener) one-liners, Andy Kaufman (Nicholas Braun) squeezes a laugh from nothing with a quick bit, and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) belts an uncomfortable tune. All acts from a team that was too hot for prime time.

Casting actors to play some of the most memorable and magnetic comedians of a generation is a striking feat, and the ensemble here is mostly successful. O’Brien and Morris are the standouts, but each seems to mostly morph into their alter egos in ways that never distract with *Leo pointing meme* type performances. Instead of each actor doing an impersonation, they mostly seem to adopt elements of their real-life counterparts’ idiolects into their performance in ways that create a vibrant ensemble cast on its own instead of a showcase of impressions.

Jason Reitman’s film is a physical one, it’s not only filled with long “oners” packed with motion but also in the performances that require characters to trip and fall, run up stairs, and push into crowded rooms. It’s the physicality that keeps the pace up (while simultaneously broadcasting the skills of the actors to do a physical gag in a long wide shot while staying in character). The camera passes the POV around like a baton in a race, never letting anyone catch any kind of a breath between frantic moments. The craft is also evident in the period-specific costume design and the staccato score by Jon Batiste (who also appears as Billy Preston).

Saturday Night asks its audience to watch everything that can go wrong simply not go wrong and to stick out its frantic and fumbling sprint to air until the last brick is literally laid. It’s an unflattering portrayal of the original cast and crew, but a flattering portrayal of their immense talents. It takes ninety minutes for Lorne to shove his cast into frame and onto NBC airwaves, and the same amount of time for Jason Reitman to try and show how an entire generation of comedians find their voices.

Saturday Night had its Canadian Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s set to have a limited release on September 27, 2024, and a wide release on October 11, 2024.