Saturday Night Review: LFF 2024
Comedy legends are born in Jason Reitman’s SNL movie Saturday Night
The annual ‘Surprise Film’ slot at the BFI London Film Festival is the hottest ticket in town, but it’s also a really tough ask. Any film maker presenting their film in this slot must be hopeful that it will have a broad enough appeal that 2000 or so people will be happy enough to sit through it even if it may not be something they would have picked themselves. This year’s film maker facing that challenge was Jason Reitman. And his film? Saturday Night.
October 11th 1975 and producer and comedy writer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is about to have the most important night of his life; the debut episode of his risky new live sketch show ‘Saturday Night’ – or SNL as it’s now more commonly known, is going to air. Things aren’t exactly going well for Lorne; he hasn’t finalised the script, some of his actors haven’t signed their contracts, the crew is fighting, the decency standards department are freaking out and the studio bosses want to cancel him altogether. As Lorne tries to wrangle the chaos, and not get fired, a tv institution will be born.
Saturday Night covers in real time the 90 minutes leading up to SNL’s first broadcast, following Michaels and his now legendary debut cast including Chevy Chase (played here by Cory Michal Smith) Dan Akroyd (Dylan O’Brien) Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt) John Belushi (Matt Wood) and Andy Kaufman (Nicholas Braun.) It’s incredibly clever framing of the story by Reitman, who weaves in and out of the various dramas happening backstage and in the studio in enormous, complicated set pieces that allow the audience to feel like they’re right there in the middle of the action.
Chaos is truly the word for Saturday Night, and immersing the viewer in it works to varying degrees. A good chunk of the first half of the movie is so frenetic that it’s really hard to tell what’s going on – especially when there are dozens of characters being introduced – though I do in part blame the poor sound at my screening. As the runtime goes on and Reitman starts to focus scenes to pick out individual characters it does become easier to follow, though the pace never slows.
It’s a brilliant ensemble cast. Surprisingly lacking in A-listers (J.K Simmons and Willem Dafoe both have very small roles) Saturday Night is largely made up of the up-and-coming faces of tomorrow. You’ll recognise Gabriel LaBelle from Spielberg’s The Fablemans, Cooper Hoffman who plays studio exec Dick Ebersol from PTA’s Licorice Pizza, and Rachel Sennott from, well, everything at the moment.
The SNL cast members are largely pulled from tv shows, a mix of seasoned network show actors and sitcom stars mean this is a group of people who are used to being part of large ensembles. Many are able to carve out moments of individual brilliance amongst the madness. When combined with the brilliant hair, make up and styling they are a seamless 70s bunch.
As a story about the creation of the show and the impact it would go on to have Saturday Night really only scratches the surface. There’s no time to dig in to anyone’s individual stories, and for a non-American audience who may not have even seen the show you’re really not going to learn a whole lot about it. Yet it’s an irresistibly fun romp stuffed full of great comedic performances and an easy crowd pleaser.
With technically brilliant set ups from Jason Reitman and his crew and a refreshing perspective that’s reminiscent of one of my all-time favourite sitcoms – 30 Rock – Saturday Night is an enjoyable watch for fans of the cult show and complete newcomers alike.
Saturday Night is playing as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2024. It will be released in UK cinemas on 31st January 2025.
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