SATURDAY NIGHT– 5 STARS

Thanks to nearly fifty years of success, the ongoing history of NBC’s Saturday Night Live has become, as they say, “the stuff of legend.” The show has been a nebula for forging radiant new stars and a wellspring of comedic creativity that consistently irrigates the cultural zeitgeist. Alas, as soon as that L-word is implored and bandied about, curious followers and devoted fans alike want to know the “true” story behind the celebrity-soaked mythology. When those quotation marks are necessary around “true” to soften the details that follow, the spotlighted fable has already reached an oxymoronic point. Embellishment takes over to become automatic and pervasive.

LESSON #1: HEARING A FISH STORY OF A TRUE EVENT– The thing is embellishment couldn’t be more appropriate to venture into the storied origins of a high-concept sketch comedy show. The bawdy and rowdy new film Saturday Night, directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by Gil Kenan, is a fish story version of festooned truths. The stuff of nostalgic backstage lore made with embellishment then is retold in a loosey-goosey “based on a true story” fashion with its own embellishment now. When executed with flair, a good fish story that gets stranger and more exaggerated as it unfolds–and, hot damn, does this one ever do that–can engage and entertain better than the true version of events.

The Saturday Night Live we revere now came from uncertainty, sheer will, and creative chaos long before anyone dropped an “and the rest is history” line to stamp its established legend. Saturday Night is set on October 11, 1975 and begins when the clock strikes 10:00pm Eastern time. It’s precisely 90 minutes before the series premiere is expected to go live as a new addition to NBC’s late night programming to replace reruns of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Head creator Lorne Michaels, played by The Fabelmans breakout discovery Gabriel LaBelle, is standing on the West 50th Street curb outside of the NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza waiting for a scheduled guest to arrive while a young page (Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard) is playing the town cryer handing out free tickets for the upcoming show. Paper set on fire is inexplicably falling from above when a cab arrives to let out the one and only Andy Kaufman (Succession Emmy nominee Nicholas Braun) into Lorne’s care. Just like that, we’re off.

Eight floors above this street is Studio 8H, the rejiggered former radio studio where the eventual magic is supposed to happen. The brilliantly weaving camera movement of Jason Reitman’s regular cinematographer Eric Steelberg reveals the disorderly and less-than-harmonious setting. The wonky sound system is failing, the requested extra lighting is unsecured, the constructed sets and stages aren’t finished, and all of the rehearsals are running long due to these technical glitches and unplanned delays. Those are merely the non-human elements, which are already a mess. Wait until you meet more people in Saturday Night.

The flock of sauced and wacky birds preening with their own feathers out at the Peacock network are a circus squad of hungry, aspiring talent. Writers, thespians, and comedians from different parts of the United States and Canada have been assembled by Michaels for the chance to get their act seen by a televised audience. Trying to both show off and still fit in enough to keep their new jobs longer than one night, the aspiring newbies collaborate, splice, and clash with the established names of debut episode host George Carlin (an unrecognizable The Americans Emmy winner Matthew Rhys), The Muppets creator Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun pulling double duty), musical guest Billy Preston (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste), and the cocky entertainment legend Milton Berle (Whiplash Oscar winner J. K. Simmons) invading from a few floors down the building.

LESSON #2: THE FLUIDITY OF WORKPLACE DYNAMICS– If you can look past the minefield of Easter eggs and spot-on period detail provided by Loki set decorator Claudia Bonfe, two-time Oscar-nominated production designer Jess Goncher, and Milk costume designer Danny Glicker, you will see Saturday Night is a loudly amplified example of workplace dynamics. People have their prescribed lanes and roles, even during the “all hands on deck” crunch time of these final 90 minutes before airtime. The employee mix of young and old grandstanding personalities couldn’t be more volatile, occasionally wading in a chemical bath of booze and drugs. Saturday Night fleshes out who on down the line in this gaggle needs what– be that from places of encouragement or discipline– for massaged egos to crises of confidence. Furthermore, teams come to value the little rescues, pep talks, stop-gaps, and serendipitous miracles happening to provide triage and morale to this soundstage battlefield.

To no surprise, the alpha male of the bunch with the clearest ticket to a bright future is Chevy Chase (May December’s Cory Michael Smith), trying to charm every skirt and suit that looks at his matinee idol charisma. His polar opposite with maddingly equal drawing potential is the erratic and burly wild card of Jon Belushi (newcomer Matt Wood). Behind those two are the character chameleon master Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien of the Maze Runner trilogy), the glue guy of Garrett Morris (Fargo Emmy winner Lamorne Morris), and the uncouthly witty head writer Michael O’Donoghue (Tommy Dewey of Hulu’s Casual). Not as front-and-center, but not short-changed are the main cast female linchpins of Jane Curtin (former soap star Kim Matula), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn of Black Mirror), and Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt, recently seen in Horizon: An American Saga) doing their level best to keep their cavemen co-stars in line and at bay.

LESSON #3: LEADING THROUGH CHAOS– All of the downright zany and unorthodox conflicts of production and personnel funnel to Lorne Michaels for all the necessary answers. Flanked by his nebbish assistant Neil Levy (Andrew Barth Feldman of No Hard Feelings), the rudder-steering showrunner executive Dick Ebersol (Licorice Pizza’s Cooper Hoffman), and his supportive wife and fellow writer Rosie Shuster (Bottoms star Rachel Sennott), Lorne must be the “bucks stops here” presence of leadership, support, and decision-making, no matter the flabbergasted aura or corporate pressure (embodied mostly by Willem Dafoe as NBC talent relations VP Dave Tebet). He must have the conviction to rein in the mustangs and shepherd the lambs. Reitman puts the movie in Gabriel LaBelle’s able hands to do just that, and he winningly succeeds.

To some, there will be too many moving parts, assertive presences, character swerves, and simultaneous stopwatches to keep track of in Saturday Night. The breezy script from Gil Kenan (both of the recent Ghostbusters legacy sequels) and Jason Reitman (Up in the Air, Juno, Thank You for Smoking) parces out opportunities to blend together a huge cast where everyone has the vulgar gift of gab. The strict, mark-hitting editing of John Wick: Chapter 4’s Nathan Orloff and Deadpool & Wolverine editor Shane Reid saw that every encounter and joke landed right on time and on beat with the movie-long countdown aided by Jon Batiste’s cowbell metronome piercing the jazzy background score. The breathlessly propulsive pace of Saturday Night, orchestrated by those combined elements, makes everyone look spry, nimble, and, most importantly, exciting and hilarious.

LESSON #4: THE DIFFERENCE OF HAVING A MOMENT AND MAKING A MOMENT– Still, like the magic of Saturday Night Live itself, that measured perfection doesn’t entirely just happen unscripted and organically. There’s a difference between “having” a moment and “making” a moment, and even this movie’s blistering speed makes time to hammer that difference home. Opportunities can be had by any recipient who gets their nose in the right place. However, earning acclaim from that moment to earn more chances to prove one’s self are the biggest victories. Saturday Night offers a plethora of quality time for the ensemble cast playing the famed “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” to show off their interpretive impressions, possibly in matching hopes they too, through this flashy movie, can go from borderline unknowns to new household names. 

Entertainment fact checkers, TV historians, ardent non-fiction readers, and, hell, probably quite a few living witnesses who were there on October 11th, 1975 are well within their rights to poke holes in the Swiss chess of Saturday Night with their barrage of over-protective pitchforks. Saturday Night was never going to pass a documentary’s level of filtering, nitpicks and all. Nor should it. They’re unfortunately barking up the wrong tree. 

Amid all of those possible craters of artistic license and smears of misrepresentation, the question is whether Jason Reitman and company were out to rewrite history to their own indulgent liking or if they were assembling an entertaining lark of a movie. If audiences take this raucous ride and seek out more behind-the-scenes facts to dispel the embellishment, part of the mission of Saturday Night is accomplished. Reverence beats recourse. That’s where the vitriolic temperature can be turned down and a good fish story can be shared and enjoyed. Do what the show itself asks you to do. Sit back, relax, and laugh.