1 week Ago
Saturday Night Live's baseline allure lies in its implicit spontaneity. Even at its weakest, each episode of the monumental comedy series opens with enticing stakes: will this week's guest host manage to slot themselves into the tempo of SNL's live sketch comedy? Will the show's writers be able to turn the news of the week into clever satire? Will an unexpected casting decision light up the Internet or spark viral ridicule? Fifty seasons in, this implicit tension continues to draw in viewers week to week. That key tension is exactly what's missing from Saturday Night, Jason Reitman's hollow retelling of the lead-up to the show's very first episode.
On October 11, 1975, Saturday Night Live was about as far as it could get from the well-oiled cultural institution it would become. Green lit only because of a contract dispute between NBC and Johnny Carson, the pressure to turn a ragtag assortment of green twentysomethings and half-written bits into a functional comedy show lies squarely on a young Lorne Michaels's (Gabriel LaBelle) shoulders. Only 29—although 22-year-old LaBelle makes him appear even younger—the Michaels we meet in Saturday Night is a pretentious, nervy newcomer who,.
.. Abby Monteil.
