And then the flops began. Most were not successful as films, but they were at least trying <\/em>things, attempting to expand his style and voice, even when failing spectacularly (and make no mistake, Men Women & Children<\/em> is a failure), but the more they failed, the more desperate he became. Even an attempt to make lightning strike a third time, by re-teaming with Juno<\/em> and Young Adult<\/em> scribe Diablo Cody for Tully<\/em>, failed to connect. And so, as far as this observer can tell, Mr. Reitman decided to suck it up and lean into his last name, to become the torch-carrier of the Reitman legacy. First he co-wrote and directed the wildly pandering Ghostbusters: Afterlife, <\/em>and co-wrote its followup, Frozen Empire<\/em>, handing the directorial reins over to his writing partner Gil Kenan. And now he and Kenan have written, and Reitman has directed, Saturday Night<\/em>, a nostalgia-laden celebration of the television show that fed his father the stars of his biggest hits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The premise, in all fairness, is a good one\u2014or at least it seems so, on first glance. It is October 11, 1975, the debut date for Saturday Night<\/em>, the brainchild of television producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), who still has a fuzzy sense of what the show will even be, or how he\u2019ll squeeze its three-hour dress rehearsal into 90 minutes of live television. We meet him at 10pm, 90 minutes to showtime, and follow him through the run-up to air in what amounts to real time, as so many wheels fall off the wagon that there are real questions as to whether they will be able to air anything at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So far, so good. Reitman and Kenan have done enough of their research to plug in little details that will delight the comedy nerds (hi), like the staff\u2019s insistence that they\u2019re doing \u201csketches\u201d and not \u201cskits,\u201d or the role Johnny Carson and his demands played in the show\u2019s green light. But there\u2019s also only so much drama and urgency to draw from here, and after a while, the screenwriters start ginning stuff up, with increasingly hard-to-swallow results; did they actually think anyone would believe that Michaels himself was initially going to lead \u201cWeekend Update,\u201d and spontaneously handed it to Chevy Chase mere moments before they went live? I\u2019m a sucker, folks, but I\u2019m not a dipshit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, that\u2019s pitched here as another example of Michaels\u2019s instinct and brilliance, and what\u2019s least surprising about Saturday Night<\/em> is the extent to which it becomes yet another sacred text for the Church of Lorne<\/a> (complete with Dick Ebersol, who would end up saving the show from certain death six years later, portrayed as the oaf). He\u2019s been doing the show for so long, and has become such an institution himself, so inseparable from it, that no one bothers to ask anymore if he\u2019s actually good<\/em> at the job (no one, that is, except Harry Shearer, whose brief but pointed rant against the Michaels Method on WTF<\/em><\/a> is essential listening). What\u2019s fascinating about Saturday Night<\/em> is the extent to which one could make the argument that his flaws as a television producer were apparent from show one\u2014if they\u2019d thought to make such a nuanced argument, which they certainly did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are, to be fair, flashes of good writing, here and there (Lorne\u2019s little speech about what the show is, and the feeling he wants to convey, is corny but lovely), and several of the performers (particularly Lamorne Morris as Garret Morris, no relation, and Dylan O\u2019Brien as Dan Aykroyd) have their moments. But the actors who come off best are those freed from the obligation of recognizable cosplay: Rachel Sennott as writer Rosie Schuster, Tommy Dewey as writer Michael O\u2019Donahue, Cooper Hoffman as Ebersol, Willem Dafoe as an evil network suit David Tebet, and Tracy Letts in a brief but memorable appearance as veteran writer Herb Sargent. But some of the stunt casting is baffling\u2014why is Nicholas Braun playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson? Why bring in the admittedly inspired J.K. Simmons as Milton Berle for little more than a scene of literal dick-waving, beyond prompting the comedy nerds in the audience to elbow each other (as he notoriously hosted one of their worst shows ever in season four)? <\/p>\n\n\n\n And that ultimately, sadly, seems to be the main audience that Reitman is pitching to here. We do, thankfully, get a sense of the cast\u2019s affection and comfort with each other (or lack thereof). But there\u2019s never even the briefest moment of immersion, nary a fleeting sense that we\u2019re watching a story unfold, rather than a carefully cultivated affirmation of our pop culture priors. By the time Dafoe\u2019s suit fumes, \u201cPerhaps you kids aren\u2019t quite ready for prime time<\/em>,\u201d we\u2019re getting into full-on bullshit biopic \u201cYes, Dewey Cox, with meditation there’s no limit to what we can imagine<\/em>\u201d territory. And that\u2019s before we get to the payoff with the brick floor, which may be the single clumsiest metaphor I\u2019ve seen in a motion picture in longer than I\u2019d care to remember. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday Night<\/em> moves at a decent clip, and will likely satisfy at least a portion of an audience that\u2019s interested in the origins of Saturday Night Live<\/em>. But in terms of Reitman\u2019s career, it\u2019s another step backwards\u2014with no ground left under his feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Saturday Night” is out Friday in limited release. it goes wider on October 4, and into wide release October 11.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/saturday-night2-1024x512.jpg\")
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