Pauline Kael once described a film she reviewed as “coitus interruptus going on forever,” and that phrase came to mind when I was watching Saturday Night. The movie takes in the backstage shenanigans before Saturday Night Live’s premiere on October 11, 1975, and while I wasn’t expecting a distillation of that TV show’s cultural impact over the intervening half century, I was hoping for a nice little yarn amid the volatile mix of comedians and executives. Too bad Jason Reitman’s film becomes a frustrating exercise in constantly forgetting the punchline.
The entire film takes place during the 90 minutes before the first episode of the live show airs. It’s not going well: Show creator Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) needs to cut half the sketches to get the show under 90 minutes. John Belushi (Matt Wood) still hasn’t signed his employment contract, and he physically assaults the show’s lighting director (Mark Cyr) after a falling light fixture almost kills him and Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt). Staff writer Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany) angles to be an on-air performer, and Garrett Morris (he’s played by Lamorne Morris, who is no relation to him) chafes at his stereotyped roles. A llama wanders the halls of 30 Rockefeller Center, and nobody notices Andy Kaufman (Nicholas Braun) talking to it in his put-on Slavic accent: “You’re so fluffy!” Lorne is so busy running the show that he doesn’t notice that his wife Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) is cheating on him with Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien). With all this, producer Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) wants to punt on the episode and air a rerun of The Tonight Show. Speaking of which, Johnny Carson (voiced by Jeff Witzke) calls up Lorne from Burbank, ostensibly to congratulate him but really to tell him that SNL will be DOA.
That’s not all the chaos on offer here. This is a movie where a lot of people throw things: That lighting director throws his headphones at Lorne before quitting the show, Belushi throws a glass ashtray at Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) after the latter calls him fat and ugly, and episode host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) throws his script pages at head writer Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) and declares the material crap — characteristically, O’Donoghue responds by calling Carlin an overrated Lenny Bruce wannabe and inviting him to go sniff some more coke. It’s all underscored by performances from the show’s musical guests Janis Ian (Naomi McPherson) and Billy Preston (Jon Batiste, who is also this movie’s composer).
All this, and to what end? At least Aaron Sorkin knows to give the audience some occasional small triumphs that let us know why his characters are willing to crawl through sewers for their jobs. Because Reitman and Gil Kenan’s script cuts off right after the first episode’s cold open, the show’s glorious moments don’t provide a payoff for all this. Instead, the movie keeps darting from one subplot to another without giving us anything to hold on to. When Lorne finally tells a fossilized NBC executive (Willem Dafoe) that Saturday Night Live mimics the unpredictability of life itself in New York City, it’s meant to be this thunderbolt of insight. It doesn’t work because the movie never leaves 30 Rock or brings in enough of the surrounding city to make that work. LaBelle (who starred in The Fabelmans) does his best impression of Kermit the Frog in every episode of The Muppet Show, but he can’t tie all this together or convince us that we’re watching some TV visionary at work.
Too bad. I could have watched some of these young actors re-create some of SNL’s greatest sketches. Wood shows Belushi’s ability to start a sketch calmly and then ratchet up the insanity, while the poised British actress Hunt captures some of Radner’s goofy joy. Braun pulls a double role as both Kaufman and Jim Henson and manages to make both of those artists into strange birds amid the SNL cast. Dafoe, meanwhile, creates a character out of a potential pantomime villain — his TV suit may not understand the show’s humor, but when he sees the crew members and musicians cracking up at the actors’ shenanigans, he understands that well enough. I mean, the white stagehands are laughing when Garrett bursts out singing, “I’m gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whiteys I see!”
A miscast but game J.K. Simmons shows up as comedy legend Milton Berle, and Smith makes Chevy Chase sufficiently obnoxious to make it almost gratifying when Milton openly tries to steal away Chevy’s girlfriend (Kaia Gerber) and shows both of them his enormous penis. Despite that, I can’t help but think this is a missed opportunity for several reasons. Berle came from an older generation of comedy based heavily on mugging and pratfalls, and his turn as an early SNL host was unpleasant for everyone involved because he didn’t understand the show’s humor. The movie could have used his presence to illustrate how Saturday Night Live was such a radical break from TV history, and also to comment on the show’s history of employing men who behave badly towards women. As it is, Saturday Night remains considerably less illuminating than the various oral and written accounts of the show’s history. The comedy institution and its ongoing 50th season merited something funnier.
Saturday Night
Starring Gabriel LaBelle. Directed by Jason Reitman. Written by Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman. Rated R.
