Saturday Night
Saturday Night
At 11:30pm on October 11th, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. Find out what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live (1975).
vangh1 reviewedDecember 14, 2024
This movie doesn't spoon feed you anything at all. You don't get any real sense of who these people were prior to tonight beyond a line or two, you don't get any payoff in terms of what happens with the show, it's runner or the cast after that night (which is less egregious because you probably already know). This movie really is just is "Here is some crazy stuff that happened on the set of Saturday Night Live back in '75."
There's so many moving parts and so many real, famous people they have to account for that nobody beyond Lorne really gets enough screen time to grow, change, learn, or be anything more than a moment of, "Hey, I know them! Wow, the actor portraying them nailed it!"
The unsung hero in my book is Andrew Barth Feldman as Lorne's cousin Neil. He inexplicably gets nearly as much screen time as some of the main cast but he kills it as a kid beyond his depth doing his best. Peeking his head in the stairwell and cheerily stating, "25 minutes!" with excitement while Lorne and Ebersol are having it out was perfection.
I really struggle with how much we're told instead of shown in regard to Belushi. He's compared to Brando, he's doted on and treated with kid gloves as much as possible because he's so needed but despite being told throughout, I didn't ever really feel it. The growing laughter at his Weekend Update bit felt disingenuous ("and then the whole place broke out in spontaneous applause, I swear to God!") and with Chevy and Akroyd I thought they managed to do just enough that you feel who they are and why they're there (Chevy with his verbal sparring matches, Akroyd with his lighthearted bouncing from person to person) but with Belushi we only really see him being a problematic hot head.
Lamorne Morris and Kim Matula soar in their limited time. Lamorne pulled off the closest to a 1-to-1 experience with the actual person he was portraying.
Overall I thought the brick laying metaphor became a little too heavy handed by the end. They really double underlined and circled the meaning of it by the time the last brick was laid.
I have one REALLY BIG bone to pick with this movie. Why the hell did they double cast Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson?!? You cannot double cast an actor playing Andy Kaufman. The whole movie I was like, "Haha, yep, Andy Kaufman be crazy! He's pretending to be Jim Henson and no one has noticed" and then I started thinking "Andy is really playing Jim Henson straight, but I guess he's just super committed to the bit" and then ultimately it's just, nope, for no good reason Nicholas Braun is doing double duty. YOU CAN'T DO That!
I still have questions about who Lorne is and where he came from. I still have questions about his relationship to Rosie and her relationship to Dan Akroyd. I admit I understand a LOT more about Milton Berle than I did previously. But the movie doesn't try to be anything other than a fly on the wall during the production of a damn crazy thing, and in that I would call it a success.