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Saturday Night — Might as Well Triple Axel It
The Show That Was Built to Fail
The minute I watched the trailer for Jason Reitman’s (then) upcoming Saturday Night, I loved it. Suddenly, it was as if all the people I’d grown up with had been brought back to life. I watched the trailer twice, eyes flitting between all the fantastic, lifelike, 21st-century versions of these people I revered. I thought surely, there’s no way the actual movie’s gonna be this good, though. I thought most likely, they’ve stuffed the trailer full of big names and witty rocket-fast dialogue, but the movie itself… Well, the movie itself is somehow even better.
Chronicling the hectic, hilarious, and at times infuriating 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode of Saturday Night Live, Saturday Night is everything I’d hoped for, watching the trailer. And perhaps more. At first, I thought great, they’ve gone and made a movie tributing all those iconic characters we grew up with. Except then, I started thinking that was wrong. I’m 25. That means John Belushi died eighteen years before I was born and George Carlin died when I was seven. Maybe I meant the people my parents’ generation grew up with? But then, why make it now?
Then watching, the answer became clear. Because throughout much of the film, there’s a looming uncertainty about whether or not they’re gonna be…
