Saturday Night (2024)
Directed by Jason Reitman
At 11:30pm on October 11, 1975, a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers changed television forever. This is the story of what happened behind the scenes in the 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live.
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And it's clear from the very beginning of Saturday Night that co-writers Jason Reitman (who also directed) and Gil Kenan (who wrote the last two Ghostbusters movies) were going for the vibe, while peppering in what really happened on the night the first episode of Saturday Night Live aired, as well as other things that happened during that historic first season.
In Saturday Night, Reitman, who also co-wrote with his Ghostbusters collaborator, Gil Kenan, does his best to not make this an ensemble of young actors doing impressions of comedy greats, nor is he trying to create an entirely historically accurate recreation of what actually happened in the 90 minutes leading up to the first SNL episode.
First he co-wrote and directed the wildly pandering Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and co-wrote its followup, Frozen Empire, handing the directorial reins over to his writing partner Gil Kenan.
Even an attempt to make lightning strike a third time, by re-teaming with Juno and Young Adult scribe Diablo Cody for Tully, failed to connect.
With his new movie Saturday Night, co-writer/director Jason Reitman — whose films range from the superb coming-of-age comedy Juno and the provocative mid-life dramedy Tully to the the horrid reboot Ghostbusters: Afterlife — wants you to remember back when SNL was a scrappy sketch show stocked with counterculture comedians, signifying a major risk for NBC and the show's creator, Lorne Michaels.
Saturday Night is also the best film from Reitman since his work with Diablo Cody in 2018's Tully and 2011's Young Adult.