An early draft of this review was originally published on October 17, 2024,
at Give Me Some Light on Substack, several months before it appeared here.
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I’m apparently not the first to describe Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night as a Muppet movie — that is, its template is the same as many episodes of The Muppet Show, in which Kermit dashes about behind the scenes trying to wrangle his cast of colorful talents into putting on a live variety show.
But while I watched Daniel LaBelle’s performance as SNL’s creator and longtime director Lorne Michaels, I couldn’t stop wondering if Kermit the Frog had been his inspiration. Then I opened Letterboxd and found several critics making the same observation.
And there I learned that I’m not the only one who was distracted by the fact that, while so many young talents are impressively impersonating original SNL cast members, whenever Nicholas Braun showed up in the role of Jim Henson, he seemed to have been instructed to do a hatchet job on that beloved genius, misrepresenting him as a prudish and whiny wimp of a man. Jim Henson, easily offended by risqué humor? Jim Henson, who was famously directed by a studio to ditch his original Muppet Show title: Sex & Violence? What did Jim Henson ever do to upset Jason Reitman that would inspire him to give us this bizarre impostor?
Anyway, I’m not here to condemn Saturday Night. Though I’ll always cringe at the memory of this exasperating injustice, I am, in fact, rather fond of the film. I enjoyed it more than any of Reitman’s work since 2007’s Juno.
With the exception of the Henson misstep, I couldn’t care less about the film’s apparent lack of historical accuracy, which is apparently fueling widespread complaints from SNL superfans. Maybe the Aaron-Sorkin walking-and-talking frenzies that are Saturday Night’s primary mode are fabricating much of how that first episode went down. I’m not bothered. Maybe someone will write to me and persuade me that crimes have been committed here. But so many of the performances are strong, so much inspires my curiosity about What Really Happened, and so many scenes offer interesting tidbits about television history—I’m fascinated.
And the cast is a fascinating ensemble. Like they’ve been asked to play 25 anxious dogs in a doggy day care pen, these young actors are all kinds of fun as they careen, clash, and collaborate. (More than once, I was reminded of those chaotic scenes with groupies and rock stars in Almost Famous.) And some of them are doing brilliant impersonations. I’m stunned by the rightness of Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase and Dylan O’Brien as Dan Ackroyd here. And if Kim Matula playing Jane Curtin isn’t quite as convincing in her mannerisms, she still owns her scenes.
In an unexpectedly substantial supporting role, J.K. Simmons plays Milton Berle, who was, at the time of SNL’s launch, a legend and an institution in television comedy. And he’s terrifying. I’ve never read about Berle, and I only remember brief glimpses of his television appearances from early childhood. But this brings me back to The Muppet Movie, where Henson appeared playing a used car salesman who tries to exploit the urgent needs of his Muppet shoppers. Maybe Henson had something right there, sentencing that vulgar egomaniac to a kind of con-man hell.
And in the middle of it all, we have Rachel Sennott—thank God!—as Lorne’s collaborator and wife Rose Shuster. Again, Sennott lives up to and surpasses the hype. She’s quickly establishing herself as the strongest comic actress in her class. And now, more than ever, I want her cast as PJ Harvey in a biopic. (A good one, please. Don’t spoil this.)
As much as I enjoyed Saturday Night, I’m still not yet convinced that finds a strong, meaningful through-line beyond a simplistic Passion of the Visionary plot. Okay—Lorne Michaels took big risks and pulled off an innovative show that struck a chord with its audience in a transitional time, and it’s been a surprisingly resilient formula that has launched a hundred big careers and influenced countless variations and imitators. Sure, no argument there. But the movie doesn’t do much to reveal what exactly earns Lorne any “genius” status. As he’s portrayed here, he seems like a naive dreamer who is in over his head, a gambler making huge bets with a very weak hand, and his only real advantage is a sixth sense for comedic talent. He’s a pinball being batted all over the place and responding with little or nothing that could inspire the confidence of his cast and crew, or that can inspire us to learn from his example.
Gabriel LaBelle holds our attention, nevertheless. He’s carving out an interesting path in Hollywood right now, having already played young Steven Spielberg. What legend’s origin story will he star in next? (I can only dream of what would have happened if, when he was a little younger, the Coen Brothers had cast him in an adaptation of My Name is Asher Lev.) He’s fun to watch as Lorne tries to build a successful ship while it’s sailing, bailing out water and patching up holes in desperation, and trying to steer it around the iceberg of Willem Dafoe’s NBC executive David Tebet. (I’m telling you, with this film, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and Kinds of Kindness, 2024 represents Dafoe Saturation Point. It has got to stop. And based on what I see in the trailers for coming attractions, it doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon.)
For all that the film lacks when it comes to wisdom about artistry, it’s still got enough going for it that it rekindles my own creative energy and makes me want to be brave. Based on my limited experience in various creative endeavors—from many years of playing with an improv comedy band to serving as both podcast host and podcast panelist before live audiences—it seems to me that Labelle understands the assignment. I recognize Lorne’s determination to keep moving forward even when everything is disintegrating around him, even when the strong-personalities around him seem incompatible. Even though I had barely enough experience to be called an amateur, I planned, directed, and starred in two late-night-style comedy shows in high school, trying to choreograph dozens of my classmates through musical comedy sketches while a restless audience waited to see what would happen next. It was stressful. This movie gave me panic-attack flashbacks.
I’m pleasantly surprised by how much Saturday Night exceeded my expectations. It plays for me like a fantasy, a fan’s fever dream of what that SNL stage and those brainstorming sessions might have been like. It’s served up with such love and enthusiasm, and with such a willingness to admit the rough edges and abusive behaviors and egomanias of its famous cast and crew, that I believe it as it plays out—from its frequently calamitous opening act to its suspenseful and ultimately exhilarating finale. It’s the spirit of the thing that counts, and Reitman strikes the right balance between respect for show-business magic and ruefulness about the rudeness of its makers.
I doubt that the film will cast the same spell on viewers unfamiliar with the show’s early years that it casts on me, but it doesn’t feel like a movie meant to educate us by means of realism. It feels instead like an inventive celebration of improvisational creativity — and, better, a personal expression of gratitude.
And speaking of gratitude, I nominate, for your consideration, the amazing Jon Batiste for Best Original Score.