Saturday Night had its Canadian Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Sony Pictures will release it in theaters on September 27.

There’s life before Saturday Night, and there’s life after Saturday Night! No, I’m not just talking about the first-ever episode of one of the most iconic comedy series ever. Although no one could have been prepared for how big of a cultural phenomenon the show would go on to be, one thing has rang true about SNL: staying true to being the escape from our mundane lives. As for Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s latest film is a tumultuous dark comedy thriller about the 90 minutes leading up to the first episode of SNL going to air. What he does with the movie is a match made in heaven as it captures the behind-the-scenes mayhem that occurred on October 11th, 1975. The film works as a comedy, but it works better as a thriller and a race against the clock to ensure everything and everyone is ready to go.  

The big selling point of Saturday Night is that it’s being dubbed as a comedy thriller. These two genres rarely, if not never, mesh, so seeing Reitman and Sony Pictures talk about the movie in this light created vast intrigue. The film starts at 10:00 pm on the dot. Every few minutes, the audience is updated about where the cast and crew are before showtime, as they have until the 11:30 airtime to be ready. We see the famous cast and crew racing against time to ensure everything is correct. DP Eric Steelberg capitalizes on this by having the camera move with the cast through long takes and back-and-forth pans. He makes the audience feel as though they are in the room witnessing the craziness. It also helps Reitman and Gil Kenan’s script translate well to screen. The duo taps into a similar vein as the Safdie brothers, adding another entry to the recent trend of anxiety-inducing cinema.

The showrunner, Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), has to run around like crazy to ensure everyone and everything is all set…but it’s not. Everything one could imagine going wrong for a live TV show goes wrong: the lighting and sound systems are wrecked, the cast is fighting amongst each other, and worst of all, Michaels has numerous sketches to use but can’t fit them within the airtime given. On top of this, he has a couple of NBC execs (Willem Dafoe and Cooper Hoffman) on his back, with the anxiety always just on his shoulder whispering the five words no one in the TV or filmmaking process wants to hear: we are cutting the show. 

The biggest highlight of this movie is the ensemble, which further elevates the madness on display. No specific person stood out more than the rest, as this is very much an ensemble movie. However, some exceptions are worth mentioning. LaBelle gets the most screen time as Lorne Michaels and doesn’t waste any of it. He commands every moment on screen, proving why he’s one of the best young actors working today, a streak that started at TIFF two years ago with The Fabelmans.

Cory Michael Smith and Matt Wood play Chevy Chase and John Belushi, respectively, and do the comedians justice. Smith not only has a spot-on impression of Chase, but he also nails the look of the controversial comedian. Meanwhile, Wood captures the mindset of the thunderstorm-fueled Belushi. At no point in any scene is there always a sense of dread where he could break at any second, and Wood does a fantastic job making audiences question whether it will happen.

All of these aspects of Saturday Night make it one of the year’s best movies, but there’s also the subtle homage to the process of shooting an episode of SNL. The process likely became more accessible after the first episode, and they figured out the system, but it can only make viewers imagine what each cast and crew member goes through weekly. Getting an idea of their lines, making costumes fit, and ensuring the sound and lights are effective. The SNL cast and crew endure a lot, but somehow, they always manage to get it down by the time the clock strikes 11:30pm and the show goes live. No matter what may be happening behind the scenes, they put any tension aside and give audiences a laugh they’ve been waiting all week for. Because when whoever’s on-screen shouts, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night,” the crowd goes wild, and all worries vanish.

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