The Movie Saturday Night chronicles the tumultuous development of Saturday Night Live and the behind-the-scenes of its first episode and it did that spectacularly. To give you a bit of context, Saturday Night Live, in its early days, was known for its rowdiness and lack of organization. There was frequent alcohol and drug use, which caused drama behind the scenes, and this takes up a fair share of the movie’s plot. A main theme in the movie is facing adversity and going against the norm, something that Lorne Michaels did when creating the show. SNL was created because the king of late-night network TV at the time, Johnny Carson, wanted more vacation days for those who didn’t know who he was. Carson was a late-night TV host in a similar vein to Kimmel and Fallon today but actually funny, as well as much more popular and beloved. As he got older and started doing his show less a Saturday Night timeslot opened up and NBC made arguably its best-ever decision giving it to a bunch of people in their mid-twenties who were the first generation of performers and executives who had grown up with television they knew what audiences would want which made SNL a big hit.
One of the best parts of the movie is the portrayal of its inaugural cast. The characters are great, and you can tell the actors portraying Belushi, Aykroyd, Chase, and more studied the mannerisms and characteristics of the original “Not Ready For Primetime Players”. But the stand-out performance was that of Gabriel LaBelle’s Lorne Michaels. LaBelle had previous experience playing famous film/TV industry personnel portraying Speilberg in his semi-autobiographical drama The Fabelmens. He was similarly excellent in this movie, accurately bringing to life Michaels’s early career as a nervous executive who knew that this would be his best shot at making it in the Television industry. Another thing this movie does extremely well is the pacing it is set on the backdrop of the countdown until 11:30 and even if you know what happens and how SNL’s inaugural episode went the will they or won’t they question will keep you on the edge of your seat and a two-hour movie about the history of SNL turns into a suspenseful dramatic interpretation of the history of one of network television’s most beloved institutions.
The movie is not without flaws though It left me wanting more. I wanted to know more about its first season, the departure of its breakout star Chevy Chase, and the careers of the cast members that took off after being on the show There are a lot more positives in this movie than negatives and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in SNL or television production as it is entertaining, filled with brilliant performances, and just overall a great explanation of how the seven words Live From New York it’s Saturday Night have lasted and endured on network TV for 50 years
Overall Rating 8.5/10