“Saturday Night,” written and directed by Jason Reitman depicts the stressful, chaotic and nail-biting 90 minutes before the very first live broadcast of what we now know as “Saturday Night Live.”
The movie opened on Oct. 11, making only $5 million at the box office despite the film’s $25 million budget. However, despite the low amount of money made, I believe the film was truly something to write home about.
The cast, set and score played the biggest role in capturing the comedic essence of SNL. For example, when I think of the sketch comedy show, I think of scrappy comedians getting together once a week to perform what they love and to entertain, and that’s exactly how the film felt.
The cast of the movie consisted of a mix of more well-known names like Dylan O’Brien, Finn Wolfhard, Willem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons, but also more up-and-coming actors like Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Andrew Barth Feldman and Cooper Hoffman.
One actor that really stood out to me was Nicholas Braun. He was cast in the role of Jim Henson and also in the role of Andy Kaufman. Braun flawlessly portrayed the peaceful Henson but also the quiet, reserved nature of Kaufman. Braun playing two roles in the movie also reminded me a lot of how actors in SNL will play multiple characters in a night, having to embody each one just the right way.
The set for this film was rather simple, but really brought the audience to that fateful night in 1975 and made you feel like you were in on the action. The scenes took place either in the famous Studio 8H, on the sidewalk outside of NBC studios or at the jazz bar next door. One scene also took place at the Rink at Rockefeller Center.
Along with the set, the costume, hair and makeup in the film played a huge part in the actors’ ability to embody their characters. The story takes place in 1975, and the costumes reflect this perfectly. The actors in the film could be seen wearing bell bottoms, vests and leather jackets, all in hues of muted browns, reds, golds and blues, in classic 70’s fashion.
The hair was simple yet so utterly 70’s: big, beautiful blowouts on the women and shaggy, longer hair on the men. The makeup team also did an outstanding job in transforming some of the actors into their characters. Cory Michael Smith looked unmistakably like Chevy Chase, and Braun had Jim Henson’s signature facial hair.
The acting in the film was what made the movie so great. LaBelle is an extremely talented actor who, in my opinion, deserves an Oscar nomination this year. One can only imagine how stressful putting together a sketch comedy production in 90 minutes with no real direction, nothing like it of its kind and at one of the biggest television studios in the country could be for a 20-something-year-old, but LaBelle showed us exactly this.
This movie was truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. It had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, so anxious that they wouldn’t be able to pull off the show. Obviously, we all know that SNL has had a hugely successful career, as the show is now on its 50th season, but at that time, Lorne Michaels and his fellow writers were basically set up to fail by NBC and couldn’t have known what an impact they would be making on comedy and television.
My only critique about this film would be that sometimes it felt a bit flat, as the only major plot point is that they are trying to put on a show and things keep going wrong. But for me, this was redeemed by the amazing cast and their ability to portray these world-famous comedians and artists with dignity.
