I’m admittedly a huge Saturday Night Live fan. I’ve watched every episode (in one form or the other), read the James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales book, Live from New York, and usually devour all things SNL. Especially stories about the original cast of John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtain, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris and Laraine Newman. So, while there’s a lot of fiction in director Jason Reitman’s depiction of the first hour and a half before the inaugural broadcast, it definitely has the chaos and feel.
And what chaos it is.
The film follows show creator Lorne Michaels (The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle) as he calmly struggles to herd his cast of cats to an 11:30 p.m. start time. It doesn’t help matters that he’s getting pressure from executive Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) and Dave Tebet (Willem Dafoe, a perfect encapsulation of a network suit). “It’s not going to work,” they tell him. “You don’t have enough time!” As Michaels attempts to dismiss their warnings, the cast is busy rehearsing, pondering and getting frustrated with the crew’s lack of live television experience.
Reitman does a great job of making the audience feel the pressure as well. Almost every frame has something in it that makes you feel a sense of urgency: in the background, stage hands rushing to put up a set, a costume designer frantically trying to manufacture a new outfit, a llama walking the hall for some unknown reason. There’s also an almost continuous beating of a drum, which also helps.
The cast is flat-out terrific, thanks to Reitman and casting director John Papsidera. Some of the actors have perfected the vocal cadence of their characters, especially Kim Matula as Curtain, Dylan O’Brien as Aykroyd and Matthew Rhys as George Carlin, who was the first ever host. Corey Michael Smith is almost a photocopy of a young Chevy Chase. And I really liked how they focused on Garrett Morris, played by Lamorne Morris, and his internal struggles as to why he was even on the show. LaBelle as Michaels is the picture of calm… at least on the outside.
We all now know the aftermath of those pre-90 minutes, but it’s the getting there that makes this a super fun ride.
