Saturday Night

October 29, 2024

Last Saturday night I went and saw Saturday Night, the new movie directed by Jason Reitman. It tells the story of the beginnings of Saturday Night Live by recreating the 90 minutes before the show first aired. It’s a pretty clever way to do it. Most of the scenes were based on real events, even if they didn’t happen during those 90 minutes—some happened earlier, some later. A few scenes were made up by combining different events with some creative license. But it works.

Overall, it felt very authentic to the spirit of the show and people involved. The humor of Michael O’Donoghue, for instance, was not sanitized for modern audiences—and neither were the reactions he got from the other characters in the movie. While the connection to National Lampoon does not come up (Lorne Michaels hired a significant number of Lampoon writers and performers), the Radio Hour does get a passing mention.

The casting was very good, particularly the actors playing the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. Their voices and mannerisms were very accurate, even when they didn’t quite look like the original person. The guys playing Chase and Belushi were uncanny. The actor portraying Michael O’Donoghue was good, especially getting across his acerbic personality, but he was younger and better looking than the real MO’D. The guy who played Jim Henson virtually brought him back from the dead. On the other hand, I had trouble with the choice of Matthew Rhys as George Carlin. I like Rhys as an actor, but he didn’t sound or look much like Carlin.

I’ve heard this movie described as a “suspense comedy,” and that’s accurate. You know they’re going to succeed, but it’s hard to see how it was even possible before it happens.

As someone who saw the show’s first broadcast when it aired, and was a fan of the show into the early eighties, I really enjoyed it. I want to watch it again just to catch background details I’m sure I missed. It looks like it was made by people who knew the show well and loved it for what it was. Recommended.

(On a personal note, I was thrilled to see that they used one of my fonts throughout the movie for titles and captions.)

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