Worth seeing: | for connoisseurs of American TV and comedy, to get a glimpse of how one of the biggest comedy TV shows in US history nearly never made it to air - but does anyone outside the US care? |

Director: | Jason Reitman |
Featuring: | Gabriel LaBelle, Andrew Barth Feldman, Catherine Curtin, Cooper Hofferman, Cory Michael Smith, Dylan O'Brien, Ella Hunt, Ellen Boscov, Emily Fairn, Finn Wolfhard, JK Simmons, John Dinello, Jon Batiste, Kim Matula, Lamorne Morris, Matt Wood, Matthew Rhys, Nicholas Braun, Nicholas Podany, Paul Rust, Peter Dawson, Rachel Sennott, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe |
Length: | 109 minutes |
Certificate: | 15 |
Country: | US |
Released: | 31st January 2025 |
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is a budding TV comedy producer and is nearly ready to go live with the debut episode of his live, Saturday night, sketch show – or at least he should be. They’re due to go live in 90 minutes and the network is standing by with repeats of a high-rating show that would bring in far more in advertising revenue.
Many of the last minute rehearsals betray the fact that some of the sketches aren’t quite ready – or funny enough. Some of the stars – including Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Jim Belushi (Matt Wood), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien) and Andy Kaufman (Nichola Braun) – already think they’re too big for the show, even though the first episode has not yet aired. The unions are making it difficult to get the set built in time – and a lighting rig collapsing and landing within inches of a rehearsal does not help matters. Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun – yes, again) isn’t happy with the role he and his Muppets have been given.
Michaels’ ex-wife and co-producer (Rachel Sennott) still hasn’t decided whether to use his surname in the final credits, although they have far too much material to fill the show, some comics – such as Billy Crystal (Nicholas Podany) – are refusing to shorten their material, some of the stars are going missing – and even Michaels himself has to take himself to a bar across the road to pull himself together.
No-one is happy – few people think it will work – the network boss (Willem Dafoe) is fully expecting – and hoping – the show will fail, or better still, not even make it to air in the first place.
Can Lorne Michaels pull a TV miracle out of thin air? Will Saturday Night flop – or will the show, later renamed Saturday Night Live, end up being a big hit with younger audiences and a breeding ground for some of the biggest stars in US comedy – right up until this day?
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Of course we all know the answer to that question – and that takes some of the edge out of any drama – and that is perhaps the first weak-point of this whole production; it’s a drama about a comedy. Anyone who knows anything about Saturday Night Live knows it’s a comedy, and despite the backstage antics being presented as a farce, neither the on-camera or back-stage elements of this film are particularly funny.
Despite being packed with some of the biggest comedy stars of the 1980s, the show within the film doesn’t feel funny, risking putting the audience on the studio’s side, as it teeters on the edge of pulling the plug on a show that’s on so late at night, most of the public would probably never even know the plug had been pulled.
At the heart of this film, Lorne Michaels is always likeable. Even if many of the obstacles he encounters seem a little arch and far fetched, the audience will still empathise with his pain – has he bitten off more than he can chew? Watching his confidence slowly ebb away as the on-air time approaches, in real time, is as painful for us as it is for him. The actors playing the big names – Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi – often feel like they’re just doing impersonations, rather than truly trying to inhabit the roles.
Under the reliable direction of Jason Reitman, this moves along briskly and is generally entertaining, but one of the biggest problems with Saturday Night that if you put aside the fact that you know it gets to air and becomes a huge success, we don’t really care – a bunch of self-important up-and-coming so-called stars, who haven’t yet honed their talent are screaming for attention and not being anything like as funny or clever as they should be. At this point, many would think they deserve to fail – although they’d feel a bit sorry for the producer trying to pick up the pieces.
While the show itself is huge – and hugely influential – in the US, beyond America’s borders, many viewers won’t know – or care about the show – anyone under 40 probably won’t even have heard of any of the characters, most of whom are either dead or have hardly been seen on screen this century. All of which is reinforced by JK Simmons in his cameo of the fading TV star Milton Berle – a thoroughly unpleasant, self-important showman, largely unknown, 50 years later, outside the US.
As anarchic as it is, the backstage antics on Day One of Saturday Night are nothing compared with what happens in the likes of Tina Fey’s fictitious successor in 30 Rock, or even Garry Shandling’s The Larry Sanders Show, so this will largely be of interest to connoisseurs of American TV and comedy.