One Night, the Birth of a Cultural Institution

Cooper Hoffman (left) and Gabriel LaBelle
in "Saturday Night"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Next year, it’ll be 50 years since “Saturday Night Live” premiered on television.  Introducing audiences to a show revolving around a group of unknown comedians doing sketch comedy was a huge risk, but it paid off.  Nearly five decades later, which have been full of memorable cast members and characters, this show became one of the most influential entertainment touchstones of the 20th century, launching many careers and delivering laughs to our living rooms week after week.

For director Jason Reitman’s latest film, “Saturday Night,” he dives into the minutes leading up to the series premiere of “SNL.”  With a stellar cast, great jokes, and an electric feeling of watching people make television history, we get a fun show-business movie that takes us behind the scenes of what went into the harried production of the show’s first episode.

On October 11, 1975, Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is at Studio 8H in Rockefeller Plaza trying to take care of last-minute problems leading up to the launch of “SNL.”  With more fires starting than can be put out, Lorne will do whatever he can to make the show work.  And, with many careers on the line, including his own, failure isn’t an option.

After exhibiting a ton of potential when leading Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” two years ago in a breakout performance, LaBelle displays that talent again when showing Lorne as a mad scientist of television trying to bring his precarious creation to life.  Throughout his work here, LaBelle holds onto the nervous energy as Lorne tries to orchestrate everything to make sure the production goes according to plan.  LaBelle has a wonderful ability to go from someone who truly believes that this could all work to someone who’s being crushed under the weight of everyone’s good and bad expectations.  He brings across the intense apprehension of what this night could mean for all involved, having us feel every ounce of pressure of having all eyes on him.  This is a performance that needs LaBelle to always be moving around and interacting with others, and you sometimes feel out of breath when you go along with him as he seems to cover every inch of Rockefeller Plaza, and LaBelle’s work in this film absorbs you in the whirlwind in which Lorne finds himself.

With this being a peek at a big chapter in the television industry, the movie boasts a sizable supporting cast, all of whom make their mark.  Some of these include Rachel Sennott as “SNL” writer and Lorne’s wife, Rosie Shuster; Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Matt Wood, and Lamorne Morris as original show cast members Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Garret Morris, respectively; Nicholas Braun in a dual performance as comedian Andy Kaufman and Muppets-creator Jim Henson; Cooper Hoffman and Willem Dafoe as as network executives Dick Ebersol and David Tebet, respectively; and Matthew Rhys as iconic comedian George Carlin, who hosted the premiere of “SNL.”  However, the two standouts of the supporting cast are Corey Michael Smith, who delivers a note-perfect portrayal of original cast member Chevy Chase, and J.K. Simmons, who brings very funny egotism as comedian Milton Berle.  What really makes you remember these two performances is one of the film’s best and funniest scenes, where Chase and Berle have a confrontation over each other’s star power.  The jabs they share are increasingly vicious and witty, and you wish the scene could go on for another minute to watch these two verbally duke it out.

The screenplay by Reitman and Gil Kenan feels just a tad drawn out at times, but for the most part, the film glides by with its constant flow of dialogue and the move from place to place within the studio.  This is a screenplay that has the dialogue flow like water from a hydrant with characters digging into their lines and sometimes having to talk over each other, and you can tell that the cast members relish the best of the comedic lines that they’re given, as well as the discussions that are more heated.  The story takes us through hallways, onstage, backstage, the writer’s room, elevators, stairways, etc., and the narrative juggles its many characters and settings well as the cast members constantly move around the different settings and must face new problems as the night goes on.

Eric Steelberg, who provided the cinematography for all of Reitman’s films since “Juno,”  offers a grainy texture that harkens back to the ‘70s, while also employing a documentary-like style of camera movements that capture the behind-the-scenes chaos of that first night at “SNL.”  In the middle of this, Steelberg uses several single takes that have the camera travel through the many spaces of Studio 8H as everything unfolds.  A notable example of this is the first scene within the hallways of the studio, with Steelberg providing a minutes-long take that’s a fine introduction to the hectic nature that we can expect from this setting.

While Reitman has shown an ability to explore characters through the relatively laid-back environments of his comedies and dramas, he has to do something very different here.  In this film, he gets to expand his filmmaking abilities by presenting a story that’s built on disarray.  This is a film that has countless moving parts and requires a lot of complex scene-blocking, and Reitman’s able to handle it all while maintaining the energy and tension felt by all involved with making “SNL.”  He has a firm command in making sure the movements of the camera and the cast remain hectic, but in such a way that we can still comprehend what’s going on and remain invested in the race-against-time scenario.

There’s so much history behind the decades of “SNL,” and with “Saturday Night,” we have a wonderful tribute to the night that started it all.

Grade: A-