As “Saturday Night Live” enters its 50th season, it’s hard to imagine a time before the iconic comedy show was a household name.
For most of Jason Reitman’s energetic new film “Saturday Night,” it’s hard to believe the series ever got a second episode.
“Saturday Night,” directed by Reitman, depicts the 90-minute stretch leading up to “SNL’s” October 11 premiere in 1975. The film follows Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) as he navigates rogue performers, snide executives and a cacophony of disasters against a clock ticking down to 11:30 p.m. Original cast members such as Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) and Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) are all represented in addition to comedy legends George Carlin (Matthew Rhys), Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson (both portrayed by Nicholas Braun).
Lorne spends the majority of the runtime scrambling to make magic happen. The show needs to be trimmed, performers need to be wrangled and higher-ups need to be soothed. Time and time again, Reitman presents Lorne (and the audience) with a seemingly simple question: What is “SNL?” Lorne may toss around words like “avant-garde” and “postmodern,” but these merely deflect from the fact that he doesn’t quite know what the show is — only what it can be.
In “Saturday Night,” Reitman takes audiences on a wild, funny ride filled with sharp dialogue and a slew of engaging performances. The USC alum co-wrote the film with Gil Kenan, the pair having recently collaborated on “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (directed by Reitman) and “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” (directed by Kenan). “Saturday Night” is Reitman’s first time in the director’s chair since “Afterlife” released in 2021.
Like his work in the Ghostbusters franchise, “Saturday Night” feels somewhat fueled by Reitman’s lineage. The filmmaker’s father, Ivan Reitman, directed the original “Ghostbusters” film with “SNL” cast member Dan Aykroyd as a writer. Ivan had a history of casting “SNL” alumni such as Aykroyd and John Belushi in his films, both of whom are represented in the younger Reitman’s “Saturday Night.”
Yet the newer Ghostbusters films struggle in part because they are hampered by the past., choosing to pay homage above all else. The films lack the humor “Ghostbusters” is known for, and they lack Jason Reitman’s strong authorial voice.
“Saturday Night” certainly has its own serving of nostalgia: performers exclusively act as impressionists, and scenes simply show old sketches in full. This sometimes works to the movie’s detriment. But, despite also being a film heavily influenced by the past, “Saturday Night” is a welcome return to form for Reitman. Here, he channels the energy of some of his best films and, at the same time, operating in a new mode entirely.
Reitman and Kenan’s real-time, backstage conceit makes the perfect frame for an “SNL” movie. It is far more compelling to watch a single-setting film like this than a traditional biopic detailing Lorne Michaels’ entire life and legacy. There’s narrative streamlining and a good bit of overstuffing, but “Saturday Night” still feels like a movie rather than a retelling — a trap many biographical films fall into. By allowing events to play out over the course of roughly 90 minutes, the film adopts the scrappiness that makes a show like “SNL” so fun to watch. It may be simulated, but it truly feels like things can go wrong at any moment.
“Saturday Night” carries this manic energy throughout its 110-minute runtime. Scarcely does a moment go by where the audience isn’t reminded of the ticking clock, counting down to either legacy or demise. The camera sometimes feels averse to remaining static, while moments of quiet rarely seem to last. Crowded rooms and overlapping dialogue only add to the sense of business that characterizes the entire film. This hectic nature nearly makes you forget that this film is historical — it feels as if the show truly might not make it to air.
To carry this pacing, Reitman makes excellent use of LaBelle’s Lorne as an increasingly harrowed anchor. LaBelle brings the charm, ego and frantic energy necessary to propel the film from beginning to end. At the same time, LaBelle knows how to pull it back and either lend the movie heart or allow other actors (many of whom are doing more direct impressions) to take the spotlight. He’s a utility player who knows how to let others shine — a trait shared with some of the best cast members from “SNL” history.
It would be easy for a film about the inception of “SNL” to mythologize Lorne Michaels as the patron saint of comedy, and “Saturday Night” isn’t without that. At one point, LaBelle’s Lorne speaks about the statue of Prometheus in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, recounting that the god gave the arts to man.
But Reitman fills his creative catalog with wounded birds. “Up in the Air” revolves around a man who fires people for a living, flying around the country without a home to call his own. “Young Adult” features a wannabe homewrecker looking to reunite with her ex. Here, the writer/director turns that energy toward Lorne as a real-life muse, examining the man behind one of comedy’s most notable landmarks.
This isn’t the first time LaBelle has played the role of tortured creator. The young actor portrayed Sammy Fabelman — a fictionalized version of Steven Spielberg — in the famous filmmaker’s autobiographical opus “The Fabelmans.” Throughout the film, Sammy reckons with the curse of seeing life through a camera, progressing as a filmmaker while his family fractures around him. It’s a crushing self-portrayal of Spielberg that LaBelle executes perfectly.
LaBelle brings a similar vulnerability to this performance (although to a lesser degree), allowing the mask of unbridled confidence to drop in powerful moments. At times, there’s a real emptiness to the character that overpowers his persona. Dramatically, Lorne as a protagonist may not share the same depth as “Up in the Air’s” Ryan Bingham or “The Fabelman’s” Sammy, but those films have different aspirations. LaBelle, Reitman and Kenan have created a character performance rather than a Lorne Michaels impression, and the movie is better for it.
“Saturday Night” would always live and die by the strength of its comedy, and in this respect, Reitman and Kenan largely deliver. The script brings a number of laugh-out-loud moments brilliantly delivered by a host of talented actors. The highly constructed back-and-forths land more often than they miss, and the film feels driven by a true love for comedy writing.
This love is present in the acting as well. While it would be easy for “SNL’s” original cast of seven to overwhelm the other characters, two of “Saturday Night’s” strongest performances come from the show’s scribes. Tommy Dewey masters the script’s whip-smart dialogue in his performance as Michael O’Donoghue, a controlled balance to Lorne’s often-exasperated expression.
The film introduces Rachel Sennott’s Rosie Shuster to audiences with a grand entrance, as if to say a modern-day comedy great has arrived. “Saturday Night” continues a titanic run for the young actress, here playing an assured creator rather than her usual human trainwrecks. An early scene between Sennott and LaBelle provides a much-needed pause and a breath of fresh air; their dynamic is a highlight throughout. As if there was any doubt, “Saturday Night” further proves that Sennott is one to watch in whatever project she takes next.
By the end of the film, Lorne answers the question he’s been pelted by again and again: “What is the show?” His answer is good enough. Yet, no matter how chaotic that first night may have been, “SNL” has grown over the course of five decades into a monolithic staple of comedy television. We have, at this point, all developed our own answers.
What’s arguably more interesting is a question that’s only asked once in the text of the film. It’s a slight line, thrown out in the middle of one of this film’s many fast exchanges. It’s a question that Lorne doesn’t answer with a speech, one he doesn’t really answer at all. It’s a question that one final scene between LaBelle and Sennott seems to get to the heart of.
Who is Lorne?
In “Saturday Night,” there’s only one answer: Lorne is “SNL.”