Film Review: Saturday Night

 

Sexuality/Nudity Mature

Violence Acceptable

Vulgarity Objectionable

Anti-Catholic Philosophy Objectionable

I don't think that this will be a traditional film review.  This will be more of a rant.

My experience watching this movie may be very different from yours, dear viewer.  But I had such a viscerally negative emotional reaction to this movie that it may blind me to its artistic merits.

But first, let us talk about the plot: Saturday Night is a movie that takes place in real time in the 90 minutes leading up to the premiere of the now-iconic show Saturday Night Live.  The film centers around showrunner and creator Lauren Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) as he juggles incompetent crew members, egotistical stars, stifling network executives.  All of this occurs as the clock keeps ticking and the show is not ready.  The pressure mounts and what occurs will either be monstrous or magic.

Director Jason Reitman keeps things tense and claustrophobic in the tight halls of Studio 8H.  As the time gets closer, it feels like the walls are literally closing in.  There are a lot steadicam shots throughout so it makes you feel like you are backstage for all of the insanity.  People walk and talk with the frenetic energy of The West Wing.  Reitman is very good at transporting us to that specific place and time with the look and the feel of the era.

The performances are also top notch.  LaBelle does a fantastically understated job as Michaels as he does his best to keep his cool while clearly screaming on the inside.  The people playing the famous comedy icons like Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O'Brien), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), and the rest do a fantastic job.  Not only to the behave like them and sound uncannily similar, but they do a great job of doing more than simple impersonations: they give us fleshed out characters.  This all the more impressive when you see how little actual screentime they have to accomplish this.

All of this is positive.  I am also a fan of entertainment history and a fan of SNL.  

So why do I hate this movie?

Because this movie hates me.

In the movie, writer Michael O'Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) is upset that the network censor, who is a Christian, is cutting the vulgarity from the live broadcast.  When they confront each other, he says, "Hey you want to hear a joke?"  He then proceeds to say the most blasphemous joke I have ever heard in a film (which I will not repeat on this blog).

I want to say a few things about this.  The joke was not targeted at the Christian woman's uptightness or judgmentality.  It was not directed at her being out of date or close-minded.  If it had been either case, I may not have liked the joke, but it wouldn't have felt offended.

The joke was directed directly at God and said of Him things so horrid that it made my stomach turn.  We Christians are just as fallible and full of foibles as anyone else.  We are fair targets for mockery over our shortcomings.  But this joke was not targeted us,  It was targeted at Him.

I also want to be clear that this joke was not told with any kind of jovialness or friendly leg-pulling.  One of the advantages to being a comedian is that you can make fun of sacred cows and people will laugh along.  I find Monty Python's The Life of Brian to be blasphemous, which is why I will not watch it again.  But even here, I felt like they were taking aim at the faith not with a particular axe to grind, but instead treated the religious subject like they treat anything else.  It is the same with the blasphemous humor of South Park.  I think it is wrong, but I don't bear any ill will towards the creators because they treat everyone with their irreverent satire.

You can even say this about more pointed anti-religious humor as with Ricky Gervais.  Granted I haven't listened to all of his stand up, but he clearly goes after Christianity with jokes like, "Unlike Jesus, I actually showed up."  I bristle at how this joke insults the love of God.  But for some reason I don't get angry at Gervais.  The joke comes off not as an attack.  Instead, he is putting out his atheist point-of-view in a tongue-in-cheek way.  You may disagree with me and I respect that.  But while Gervais speaks things I disagree with, I never felt like he wanted to be my enemy.

Saturday Night wants to be my enemy.

That joke was done in the most mean-spirited way imaginable.  And it was done with the tone of the cool kids bullying the one who is not of their group.  The joke was a line in the sand where they said: "Do you believe in Jesus?  Then stay on your side of the line.  We don't want you over here.  We hate you."  It was done specifically to injure, not enlighten.  It was done to cause pain, not laughter (except maybe the haughty laughter of the bully).

And there was no narrative balance, no introspection that a line had been crossed.  This is something done in other parts of the film.  In the first half of the movie, Aykroyd is constantly hitting on the female members of the cast and crew in clearly objectifying ways.  But later in the movie, he rehearses as skit where the tables are turned and he is made to feel uncomfortable.  This gives narrative and thematic balance and resolution to the events of the movie in a way that the blasphemous joke did not.

And that mean-spirited tone is directed at beloved icons like Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun), who is relentlessly bullied by the cast and crew or Johnny Carson (Jeff Witzke) who is portrayed as a vulgar narcissist.  

Now, I know I did not give the specifics of the joke and you are free to think that I am a super zealous Catholic who is overreacting to a bit of humor.  I will leave that up to you.  All I can do is give you my honest reaction to what I was presented with.

From that point on in the movie, I was sour on everyone.  While I could understand the characters' dreams and frustrations, their horrid morality remained on full display.  

Throughout the movie, Michaels kept talking about wanting to start a cultural revolution on television.  They were revolting from all the traditions that came before.

I don't know if this movie captures a revolution.  But it certainly was revolting.