Mucking With Movies: ‘Saturday Night’

I am not as much a fan of the show “Saturday Night Live” as I am of fan of the lore surrounding it: the miscreants, the after-parties, the short-term members who departed for reasons ranging from highly-publicized failures to unfortunate passings. So, what was most important to me in “Saturday Night” was an accurate depiction of exactly how much cocaine was backstage. And kudos to them!

For the most part, they never shied away from the debauchery that made the backstage so famous. You had Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) offering George Carlin more coke with Dan Akroyd (Dylan O’Brien) massaging Carlin’s neck after realizing that Carlin has already done too much coke and can’t get onstage; Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith) jousting with “Mr. Television” Milton Berle in a neat moment that displays how monsters are made in Hollywood; and John Belushi’s (Matt Wood) mercurial behavior, which constantly threatened his career and the show’s success.

If that sounds like I crammed a lot of famous names into one sentence, that’s because I had to — “Saturday Night” has to. It’s unavoidable. Almost every name in that famous first episode became a superstar. But, director Jason Reitman could have handled it with a little more tack. It almost becomes a parody version of itself at times, a la “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” as one actor after another is forced by the script to say their full name into the camera.

The bloat doesn’t end with the name-dropping either, as the edit doesn’t know what to do with its wide range of character arcs. With so much going on and with the movie portraying the “real-time” 90 minutes before the first episode went on air, you would think they would elect to cut the story as straightforward as possible.

Instead, Reitman and his team decided to edit in flashbacks during crucial moments like Lorne lying to NBC Head of Talent David Tebet (William Dafoe) about how well the show is coming together. The flashbacks depict all the times that the show has, in fact, not been coming together well. It’s not only a joke that falls flat, but it also throws out the film’s own rubric. If you are using real-time, you need to stay with the characters every moment. Otherwise, the assumption is that Lorne was staring at Tebet for 30 seconds, not speaking and unblinking, as all the memories came flooding back to him.

The biggest thing the film has going for it are the performances, which, across the board, are phenomenal. Most notable is newcomer O’Brien’s turn as Belushi. My dad raised me on Belushi sketches and performances, showing me “Animal House” when I was still young enough that my mom nearly filed for divorce after she caught me rewatching it, and I told her that Dad said it was OK. Nobody needed fewer words to be hysterical than Belushi, and that ability is perfectly portrayed by O’Brien. In the film, Lorne’s then-wife Rose Shuster (Rachel Sennot) compares his ability to project through tiny tics in his facial expressions to Marlin Brando as a way to butter him up, but in reality, I don’t think she’s far off. In a better world, where Belushi survived his self-destructive habits, I believe he would have gone on to a tremendous second act of his career as a dramatic actor. O’Brien is somehow able to capture that brilliance in a real-life portrayal.

It is this realistic portrayal that leads us into the third act, which saves the film from all its sins. After Belushi is found at the 30 Rockafeller ice skating rink, Lorne tries to lure him back inside. Instead, he insists, “I want to try a triple axle.” She asks, “How about a single?” and he finishes it by saying, “I’ll either do a triple or die trying.” So, perfectly summing up the film’s thesis, the impossibility of managing inflated egos with cursed existences is a thankless gig that has nonetheless been a crucial expense in the making of art since its inception. It is the catalyst for the conquering ending that ensues. Everything and everybody is tied up neatly, and you’re cheering for this plucky little underdog show that will go on to become the most successful in the history of television.

It’s not until this ending that the film reveals its whole hand, and you realize it’s won. It fooled you into believing it was shallow, when the deep end was just a few steps away.

Critic Score: 7.2.

Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.

Jack Simon is a mogul coach and writer/director who enjoys eating food he can’t afford, traveling to places out of his budget, and creating art about skiing, eating, and traveling while broke. Check out his website jacksimonmakes.com to see his Jack’s Jitney travelogue series. You can email him at jackdocsimon@gmail.com for inquiries of any type.