‘Saturday Night’ Review: Comedy From Chaos

Saturday Night Live is one of the longest running shows in the United States and just recently celebrated its 50th season. The NBC live sketch comedy show has been the jumping off point for many comedians over the decades and remains a staple of many households to this day. That was far from the case back in 1975 when a then pretty much unknown Lorne Michaels dreamed up this radical new idea for a television show. Saturday Night follows the chaotic 90 minutes before the show’s debut in front of a live studio audience. It’s a wild, rambunctious, and anxiety-inducing film that adequately captures the pressures of putting on a weekly live show even to this day.

Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) has one shot to make his new show work and with 90 minutes to go before the curtains rise in front of a live audience and the entire country in front of their television sets, the NBC studio set is in a state of absolute chaos. He’s gathers a handful of unknown comedians including Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), John Belushi (Matt Wood), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), and Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) to perform a series of comedy sketches along with musical and stand up guests. Despite being so close to going on air, Michaels still has slots that need to be cut, contracts that need to be signed, studio heads that need to be appeased, and sets that need to be built. This is Saturday Night.

I will admit that as a child of the 90’s, I was not around during the early days of SNL. Honestly, I’m not that big a fan of the show in general, although I will catch up on any good skits the following week online. Being a fan is not a necessary requirement to enjoying Saturday Night. The film is more about the behind-the-scenes madness that was happening and the fact that they were able to pull it off and keep the lights going for 50 years. Lorne Michaels is a man with a vision and while he’s young and inexperienced, he is fully invested in himself and that vision to a neurotic degree. As the one in charge of it all, the camera is constantly following Michaels as he travels from set to hallways to dressing rooms to wherever is the most frantic. Everything moves at breakneck speed, with a clock displaying the time every so often to remind you of just how close things are to going live. With so much that still needs to be finished, there’s a constant state of anxiety that carries across the entire film.

The casting of Saturday Night is exceptional. Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase and Matt Wood as John Belishi are standouts but the entire ensemble cast nail their perspective roles as the younger comedians back in the 70s. Nicholas Braun pulls double duty as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson with Matthew Rhys playing George Carlin and Nicholas Podany as a spot on Billy Crystal. The impressions themselves feel cut straight from an episode of SNL. Everyone channels their own unique style of comedy as well so it’s never boring. And if there is a scene you’re not feeling, it’s only a moment before things quickly move on to the next.

SNL is very much a team effort and a miracle that it’s able to make to air on a weekly basis while in season. The amount of work needed to go from script to scene in a week’s time is ridiculous. Saturday Night does a solid job at showcasing the frantic nature of putting on the show. Even though it’s about the first show ever, that same chaotic energy carries through to this day. Fans of the show will enjoy the outrageous origin story and wonder how in the world it was all able to come together. And even if you’re not a huge fan, the film is a comical and frenetic look at one of television’s greatest shows. Just like an episode of SNL, you’re bound to find at least one thing to enjoy.