Movie Review: Saturday Night

Saturday Night depicts what transpired from 90 minutes before airtime through the opening sketch of the debut episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11th, 1975, in real time. Equipment malfunctioned. Crew members walked off during the dress rehearsal. Cast members were questioning what the hell they had signed up for.  Sketches were constantly being rewritten and cut from air. Celebrity guests were waiting around to see if they would get the opportunity to perform on air. Copious amounts of cocaine, marijuana and cigarettes were consumed by many parties involved in the making of the episode of live television. Basically, it was a borderline miracle the show even made it to the air to that night.

What Jason Reitman does in Saturday Night is use the behind-the-scenes look at the debut episode of Saturday Night Live to celebrate the enduring power of artists coming together to make things against all odds. Sure, he deeply respects and loves the legendary pop culture brand/comedic talent incubator that Saturday Night Live has become, but he knows that it wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to become those things if a band of talented, yet woefully inexperienced creatives hadn't stood strong in the face of adversity 50 years ago. A real time dramatization of the events of that night was the ideal storytelling tool to help Reitman convey this point as it highlights just quickly massive problems can arise on a production of this scale and how the best solutions to them often require a delicate combination of on-the-fly fixes and pervasive finger-crossing that those fixes hold up for long enough to complete the job. Making movies or television is a pressure cooker that only sickos who love to make shit with other like-minded people would sign up for and if it all works out, you get filled with a tremendous amount of pride for what you accomplished. And if it doesn't? Well, there's always next time.

The real time narrative device also ensures that Saturday Night is fun as hell to watch. There's an electric energy stemming from the revolving door of chaos that is playing out on screen, and it makes the movie feel alive in a way that it likely wouldn't have if it had taken a more conventional structural approach to telling this story. Telling such an inherently manic story bred an environment where everybody just gleefully leaned into the madness. Damn near everyone in this massive ensemble cast is fired up to goof around with a large group of fellow actors (the top standouts for me were Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Dylan O'Brien as Dan Akroyd and Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris), the playful camerawork paired with the tight editing ensures that the viewer is fully aware of every move this speeding bullet train is making throughout and Jon Batiste's-who also stars as the episode's musical guest Billy Preston-brilliant score goes from sparse piano pieces to explosive horn-driven jazz at the drop of a hat. Despite all of the stress that goes into making it, vigor, vibrancy and playfulness are the heart of many great creative endeavors and Saturday Night has all of those things in spades. This is Reitman's finest hour as a director in quite some time and may the love and admiration he poured into this project carry over to whatever he does next.              

Grade: B+