Saturday Night

There is a specific kind of madness that only exists in the minutes before a curtain rises—a cocktail of ego, adrenaline, and the very real possibility of professional suicide. Most biopics about legendary institutions feel like hagiographies, dusty museum tours of "greatest hits" moments. But Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night doesn’t want to be a museum. It wants to be a panic attack.

I watched this on my laptop while waiting for my laundry to finish, and the rhythmic thump-thump of my dryer’s heavy-duty cycle actually provided a perfect, industrial percussion to the film’s ticking-clock tension. It felt appropriate for a movie that treats the birth of Saturday Night Live less like a creative breakthrough and more like trying to stop a nuclear meltdown with a roll of duct tape and a few bags of cocaine.

A Beautiful, Ticking Disaster

The film covers the 90 minutes leading up to the very first broadcast on October 11, 1975. At the center of the storm is Gabriel LaBelle as Lorne Michaels. Fresh off his breakout in The Fabelmans, LaBelle plays Lorne not as the untouchable comedy deity he eventually became, but as a guy who is about thirty seconds away from a total nervous breakdown. He is surrounded by a set that is literally falling apart, a network executive (played with marvelous, oily skepticism by Willem Dafoe) who wants him to fail, and a cast of "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" who aren’t even sure they’re ready for a rehearsal.

Reitman employs a restless, roaming camera that mimics the frantic energy of Studio 8H. It’s a bit of a technical tightrope walk. The film wants us to feel the sheer impossibility of the task—the fact that the script is too long, the lighting rigs are crashing, and Jim Henson is grumpy about his Muppets being sidelined. The Muppets in this movie are treated like a recurring nightmare from a drug trip, and honestly, seeing the legendary puppets through the lens of 1970s counter-culture cynicism is one of the film's weirdest, most delightful streaks.

The Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players

The ensemble cast is where Saturday Night truly lives or dies, and for the most part, it’s a triumph of casting. Cory Michael Smith steals every single scene as Chevy Chase. He captures that specific, mid-70s Chevy brand of arrogant charisma—the kind of guy who knows he’s the funniest person in the room and will make sure you feel small because of it. Chevy Chase is played with such punchable precision that it’s a miracle the rest of the cast didn’t unionize against him.

Then there’s Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd and Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner. O'Brien nails Aykroyd’s hyper-fixated, motor-mouthed intensity, while Hunt brings a needed warmth to the chaos. Rachel Sennott plays Rosie Shuster (Lorne’s then-wife and a brilliant writer in her own right) with a sharp, grounded intelligence that keeps the movie from spiraling into total caricature.

The film excels when it focuses on the friction between these personalities. It’s a drama about the labor of comedy—the argument over a single line, the jealousy over who gets the "Weekend Update" desk, and the frantic attempts to find a clean shirt. It treats the creation of "The Wolverines" sketch not as a moment of destiny, but as a desperate, last-ditch effort to keep the lights on.

The 2024 Context: A Flop or a Future Cult Classic?

In the current landscape of cinema, Saturday Night is a bit of an anomaly. It’s an original-ish mid-budget drama ($25 million) released by a major studio (Columbia) that absolutely cratered at the box office, barely making back $10 million. It’s fascinating to look at why. We’re in an era of franchise dominance where "IP" usually means superheroes or toys; here, the IP is a 50-year-old variety show. Perhaps younger audiences don’t feel the same reverence for the 1975 origins, or maybe the "theatrical experience" for a talky, frantic drama is becoming a harder sell.

But box office is a poor metric for the soul of a movie. In the streaming age, where everything feels polished and algorithmically optimized, there’s something genuinely refreshing about how messy this film is willing to be. It acknowledges the "representation" of the era—or lack thereof—by showing Garrett Morris (played with soulful frustration by Lamorne Morris) questioning why he’s even there if the writers don’t know how to write for him. It doesn't solve the problem, but it admits the problem existed in the room.

The score by Jon Batiste (who also appears as Billy Preston) is a character in itself. It’s jazz-infused, chaotic, and was reportedly composed and recorded live on set during filming to capture the energy of the performances. That’s the kind of "behind-the-scenes" swing that makes contemporary cinema feel alive, even if the general public didn't turn out in droves to see it on opening weekend.

Ultimately, Saturday Night is a love letter to the creative process, written in the frantic handwriting of someone who hasn't slept in three days. It’s not perfect—sometimes the "legendary" foreshadowing is a bit too thick, and the ending feels a little abrupt—but it captures a lightning-in-a-bottle moment with genuine affection. It reminds me that sometimes, the best things in life are the ones that almost didn't happen. If you've ever had a deadline looming and felt like the world was ending, this movie will feel like home.