TIFF' 24: Does Jason Reitman's SATURDAY NIGHT Have A Story To Tell?

I've never been an SNL guy it's a show that I was aware of when I was a kid I caught reruns on the comedy channel in Canada of like older episodes my dad said it was good but I never had my generation of SNL and I think because of that it never got to make the impact it does on a lot of people I maybe growing up in a small town my friends had no real interest in that so I never had that kind of communal experience but I'm still fascinated at in SNL as kind of like a cultural object and when I heard that there was a movie that was going to cover the time leading up to the first show well look I'm interested and then I read it was directed by Jason wman who I'll be honest I was a big fan of Thank You for Smoking and then um for me personally it was a little bit of a case of diminishing returns I saw all of his films as they came out up until probably men women and children and then I went oh you know what he could keep you it and it's not something I will be checking out for myself but this film played at Tiff I have a tiff pass I checked this morning and oh man a ticket is available why not let's you know maybe it will exceed my expectations spoiler alert it did not it's if you've seen the trailer you know what the movie is it's kind of like bird manes following driving soundtrack as Lauren Michaels runs around trying to figure out how he's going to put this show it's chaos the show was too long running 3 hours in the dress rehearsal John Belushi is all over the place he hasn't signed his contract Chevy Chase will he get his star making turn and you know it's all this little stuff playing out in the background probably great Easter egg for people that are big SNL fans that have read the oral histories and stuff like that but for me I thought it was interesting I think at the beginning you're thrown right into it you're giving very little context that I enjoy that the drama that is inherent of putting on a show especially as everything around War Michaels goes wrong that's fun you you can get engaged because there is a goal to be hit and the difficulties that need to be overcome are things that are pretty interesting it gets a little bit shakier as it goes along because the kind of dramatic Stakes that it's trying to set up are not really paying off moving forward to something that he needs to see and I don't think the film ever communicates that and because of that the kind of energy and Verve is fun to watch and it's fun to watch all the cameos excellent Billy Chris in this movie and an appearance from Milton Burl doing exactly what you would want with a fictionalized portrayal of Milton Burl doing uh you know there's joy to be had there but at the end of the day it's what I was worried about it's not really enough and any moment of trying to set up some kind of like dramatic tension or payoffs come off as like a little bit trickly for example Gilda Radner watching John Belushi skate before the show and wondering ah do you ever like look back in the moment and wonder is this going to be one of the big moment moments in our lives that we'll be looking back on or when Lorden Michaels is confronted by the evil Chief played by William defo who wants to show to fail and is asked what is SNL and then he gives a big speech about like it's you know catching an artist in the corner playing a show or catching you know a great comedian a big star just doing a little Club it's what we all think that the big city is now whether that may be true and that may be one of the reasons that SNL was as successful as it was was and I don't think the film ever communicates that and you know maybe that's impossible that's such a grand thing to do in like a movie that's just over 100 minutes is impossible at the end of the day what this feels like is more like a fan film that like this is for some people who are obsessed with snel that want to see all this stuff Illustrated on screen and that they want it like kind of realistic enough so you can see moments that you've heard about multiple times from all the different accounts finally play up right there but for me I need a little bit more I wonder like did it have to be weirder or even less context that there was even more chaos in it is something that could have allowed me to really sink my teeth into a motion picture like that and that's never really what Jason wman was going to do that's not really the kind of movies that he makes but you know it is what it is if you're an SNL fan you'll probably enjoy it if you're not you may just think it's okay but at the end of the day that's all you're going to get out of a movie like this