It is 90 minutes to show time as the scrappy young cast of no-name comedians rally behind Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) in Studio 8H ahead of the first airing of Saturday Night Live.  Lorne, trying to balance the needs of the cast and crew, also must answer to Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman), a liaison between Lorne and the studio execs that have dwindling faith in the show.  With disgruntled talent, an unlocked script, and a set in disarray, it is no wonder why NBC would be nervous.  There fears are abated, though, when Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) steps over John Belushi (Matt Wood) and Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) at the end of the opening sketch and says those now-iconic words “Live From New York, It’s Saturday Night!” as television and comedy had changed forever. 

Jason Reitman directs Saturday Night, which plays out in near real-time looking back at the pre-show frenzy ahead of the first airing of the long-running NBC variety show.  With assistance on the page from Gil Kenan, the apocryphal account debuted at the Telluride Film Festival ahead of its theatrical release courtesy of Sony.  Boasting an incredible ensemble cast assembled by John Papsidera that spans generations, all impeccably dressed by Danny Glicker, it is a little strange that this 109-minute fluff piece celebrating the show’s 50th anniversary was mounted by a rival studio instead of Universal.  Sony, and the team directly behind the film, all handle the property with reverence, so much so that it becomes sickeningly sweet across its frantic runtime that those without fond memories of the debut cast may find it a bit of a trudging experience. 

LaBelle leads his merry troupe stuck playing the straight man in this zany world of his own creation meaning almost all of his comedy is reactionary instead of catalyzing.  The way the character is written and the structure of the film really holds the young actor back from reaching the highs we have seen from him in his still brief career, but even if it were expanded and retooled to allow him to stretch a little more, the result may still be the same.  He absolutely crumbles under the weight of the narrative.  Like most of the up-start cast, they struggle to shake the sense that they are children wearing their father’s work clothes on a Saturday morning as a cute little joke in between cartoon binges and bowls of sugary cereal.  The way that this film and these characters are presented bends our credulity that NBC would hand over even 30 seconds of ad space to them let alone a 90-minute live broadcast in a coveted slot.  Everyone seems just incredibly and inconceivably young here, and while these aspects are all digestible on their own, it is way too much to accept when it is taken together as a whole. 

Further, so much of the film is focused on working towards the airing of a now half-a-century old show featuring comic stars that have gone on to influence a whole generation of new comic stars who further built upon that legacy.  This is all a lot of praise-adjacent vocabulary to avoid calling it exactly what it is; fan service, albeit a different brand because there are no spandex suits in sight.  Given that we know – even if we are not devoted acolytes of the show – that SNL will make it to air on that fateful October 11th evening, the script does little to boost the stakes of the narrative in favor of simply playing the hits.  There is an attempt, and it should be recognized, but we do not really care what name Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) will submit for her credits or if Baluchi will sign his contract, and after the Nth cutaway to production designer Leo Yoshimura (Abraham Hsu) laying the brick walkway, the gag has long since worn out its welcome.   

These sequences all occur in the mile-a-minute editing from Nathan Orloff and Shane Reid who have the monumental task of assembling the footage captured by Eric Steelberg’s wildly in-motion camera.  The narrative does slow down at intervals to let audiences catch their breath, but when those scenes are not bogged down with lengthy expository information about who these ragtag performers are and what kinds of oscillating and twisted relationships they have forged with each other, Reitman and Kenan will opt for flowery speeches amounting to little more than insufferable self-importance, even going so far as to compare Loren as Prometheus bringing art and science down from the mountain and delivering it to the people. 

There is, however, one slowed down moment that stands out above the rest and it occurs late in the film in a stairwell.  An altercation between Loren and Dick occurs with less than half an hour to show time; Loren accuses Dick of not understanding the philosophy of the show and Dick explains to Loren that he is the only one outside of his cast that believes in it.  Hoffman absolutely soars.  The rage, the love, to call it what it is, the passion, is nothing short of incredible and is proof of his pedigree and how he can take a supporting character and make them the star.

The reason that scene works beyond just the performance but on the page is because it is actually moving the narrative forward in a macro yet also nuanced way with a dueling character pair that is actually interesting and showing us some of the inside baseball that is a much more electric angle to take into this story.  Loosening the narrative knot from around Loren and making it a two – but arguably three-hander by roping in the woefully underutilized Sennott as Rosie – would have taken some strain off of LaBelle while also allowing the script to delve deeper into all of the stories it only has time to brush up against.  It probably would not be able to play “live” as it is here, but again, that structure gets in the film’s way so the retooling could have only opened more opportunities for the scriptwriting team.  This approach would also have given the cast more time to meaningfully shine in their roles and not just show up for a few scenes to remind audiences they were also involved. It is part of the delight of a true ensemble piece getting to see Tracy Letts stop in for an afternoon of filming as the cantancerous Herb Sargent, or enjoying Willem Dafoe chewing the scenery as Dave Tebet who is the defacto villain, but under such poor ensemble management Dan Aykroyd‘s (Dylan O’Brien) arc feels shunted and the comedy around Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun) goes unrealized, all pushed to the side like a jealous castmember so that the script can go back to valorizing Loren. 

Saturday Night is a film that fans of the show would definitely find a lot of joy in watching how the sausage gets made, but given the goals and motivations, they may find more satisfaction by just watching clips on YouTube or pulling up S01.E01 on Peacock.  The biggest problem though lies in that the film is lacking in even just a fraction of the confidence that Loren had so while it tells us that what we are watching is wild and loose and free, it all feels rigid and manufactured. Rietman does not even trust his direction or his actors enough to garner an organic laugh from his audience as they reenact some of the sketches because he needs to cut to a long pan of the massive cast bowling over laughing.  This love letter reads like a pitiful, slobbering statement and the self-consciousness takes all the air and life out of the film, landing with a thud like a light rack onto a stage, but far, far, far less exciting.