Saturday Night: Comedy history with a Canadian connection

The Snapshot: An extremely sharp, talented and versatile ensemble of actors brings pluck to the story behind the creation of TV megahit "Saturday Night Live"

Saturday Night

7 out of 10

14A, 1hr 49mins. Comedy History Biography.

Co-written and directed by Jason Reitman.

Starring Gabriel Labelle, Rachel Sennott, Cooper Hoffman, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Matt Wood, Dylan O’Brien, Jon Batiste, Willem Dafoe and J. K. Simmons.

Now Playing at Landmark Cinemas at the Pen Centre in St. Cathrines, 5 Drive-In, Cineplex Winston Churchill & VIP and Cineplex Oakville & VIP.

Watching the new ensemble comedy and/or history lesson Saturday Night, the talent from the film’s cast left me dazzled with the same question that likely walloped TV executives nearly 50 years ago when Saturday Night Live (SNL) first went on the air: where did you find these guys?

There’s something surprisingly cinematic about the back story to one of television’s most successful programs of all time. What makes it really sing is the scrupulous detail and love shared from the actors playing actors on screen, embodying countless great comedians from history.

SNL first went live exactly 49 years ago today, and the show just began their landmark 50th season on NBC. The commonality is the show is still being led by Canadian comedy legend Lorne Michaels, played here on screen with gusto by fellow Canadian Gabriel Labelle (best known for memorably starring in 2022’s The Fabelmans).

Sure, this version of events in the movie is exaggerated and dramatized to some degree, but the manic energy of the film captures a lot of what that first episode frenzy must have really felt like.

The movie Saturday Night tracks 90 minutes of real time panic as Michaels scurries around NBC’s New York studios just before the Saturday Night Live goes live and makes its premiere to the world, stunning audiences like never before.

Some artistic liberties have obviously been taken in the screenplay from director Jason Reitman and his writing partner Gil Kenan. Otherwise, the co-ordination and timing of the comedians, technicians and network execs clashing over the show would be too serendipitous to be believable in any way.

The story arc is thin, and mostly made of short scenes enacting what happened that night. But dozens of interviews were conducted with people who were actually there, and that respect is what makes the screenplay far more engaging than the pair’s work earlier this year on the recent Ghostbusters sequel.

Read more here: Ghostbusters melts down in Frozen Empire

But the driving hope that maybe, just maybe, these ragtag young adults can get it together and finish the show just in time gives enough levity to the production you want to keep watching.

Several cast members playing the, well, SNL cast members, are uncanny in their portrayals of these iconic artists. Highlights include Rachel Sennott as Michaels’ partner Rosie Shutter and Cory Michael Smith as egotistic Chevy Chase.

Yet the biggest scene-stealer in a movie full of scene-stealers is newcomer Matt Wood as John Belushi. Wood’s depiction of Belushi’s hurricane level energy and his (almost dangerous) devotion to the act of storytelling really makes you feel like you’re seeing the real thing.

Like the show that inspired it, and like Labelle’s Michaels says, "it’s like a Saturday Night out on the town. It’s a little bit of everything." Saturday Night is entertaining like a movie, but better understood like walking through an SNL museum.

The most compelling part of the experience is feeling as close a presence to the essence of what making television was - and sometimes still is - like. It’s not just a thrill ride for SNL fans. It’s for anyone who’s a fan of comedy itself.