Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the movie “Saturday Night” and graphic language that could be disturbing or offensive to some readers.
On Oct. 11, 1975, almost exactly 49 years ago to this day, “ NBC’s Saturday Night” premiered. Half a century later, the live sketch comedy show still somehow graces our screens. And to celebrate such a long, perhaps overstayed, tenure on the network came “Saturday Night,” directed by Jason Reitman. The film follows the first cast of “Saturday Night Live” as they geared up to debut the not yet finished show — 90 minutes of anxiety-inducing scores, witty comebacks and sheer hope and passion holding it all together.
The cast of “Saturday Night” is stacked. There’s truly not enough time to go into detail on just how perfectly casted it is, so let me scratch the surface of the star-studded talent present: Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels, Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris, Emily Fairn as Laraine Newman, Finn Wolfhard as an NBC page, Nicholas Braun as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, Cooper Hoffman as Dick Ebersol, Andrew Barth Feldman as Neil Levy, Tommy Dewey as Michael O’Donoghue, Willem Dafoe as David Tebet, J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle — you see where I’m going here?
Every cast member consistently nails their lines, delivering well-crafted and vulgar jokes without a hint of shame. The people of “Saturday Night” are not ‘good’, per se; they sabotage each other, chainsmoke and continuously stress Lorne out, but they are entertaining. Smith specifically excels in the role of the egregious Chevy Chase, one of the most infamous cast members of the show. Dewey was perhaps the funniest cast member as Michael O’Donoghue, lighting paper on fire as he delivers the outstanding line, “I’d rather butt-f--- cancer” with a straight face. And LaBelle’s Lorne Michaels was the ball of anxiety holding everyone together, the heart of the entire film.
Along with its stacked cast, the film has a beautiful attention to design. Production Designer Jess Gonchor creates a world within the film, capturing the nicotine, cocaine and creativity filled offices of 1975. Cinematographer Eric Steelberg’s use of extremely long takes paired with the constant ticking clocks sets everyone on edge, yet unable to look away from the catastrophe on screen as the live show gets nearer and nearer.
However, despite the production and cast of the film, the biggest drawback of “Saturday Night” has to be the sketches themselves. Beyond perhaps “Hard Hats,” the sketches reek with outdated, unfunny dialogue and situations. The truth is, the best parts of “Saturday Night” are the parts not reflected in “SNL.” One of the best written moments has to come from Chase and Berle fighting over Chase’s fiance, in which Berle responds by pulling his d--- out of his pants and letting it “hang in the wind,” right after delivering the line: “If you want my comeback, you’re going to have to scrape it off the back of your mother’s teeth.” But even as things start to go up in flames between the cast members and the literal set itself, they continue to push on.
This is what made “Saturday Night” a film worth watching — the cast being flawed people trying to make history, building their story brick-by-brick. Not what came after.
“Saturday Night” is running now in select theaters.
