Weekend Watch: Saturday Night, The Apprentice
Real-life origin stories; one of future fun, one... not so much
Image Credit: Sony Pictures
Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, where I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, Saturday Night Live is born from chaos and Sebastian Stan (yes, him again) is a chaotic force. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite and Threads/Instagram: @jammerwhite
When I was younger, I didn’t really watch Saturday Night Live. Part of that was because it was often hard to find in the UK, usually ending up buried on the schedule somewhere (yes, late at night, but even when I had a VCR it was tough to track down and record).
Since moving to the States many hundreds of years ago (okay, 20), I’ve been a casual viewer, never a rabid fan. I enjoy the work of many of the show’s veterans (Lonely Island/Hot Rod hive represent!) but I’ve never dug into the history of the show.
Which is why Jason Reitman’s new film, Saturday Night was an enjoyable, if flawed experience in the cinema. A fictionalised account of the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the launch of the first episode in 1975, it sweeps and dives around two floors of 30 Rockefeller Plaza (and the street below, albeit briefly) as so many things go wrong in the lead up to transmission. As the pressure builds, the executives’ fingers linger on the button that will instead switch the broadcast to a repeat of the Johnny Carson-hosted Tonight Show (SNL was partly conceived as a negotiating tactic with the veteran comic and host).
And as technical challenges rear their heads, the untested gang of comic performers misbehaves and the writing staff annoys associates who have flown in to see the first show, executive producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) attempts to keep it all together.
He’s our guide through the maelstrom of that first night, trying to put out fires while convincing his bosses that giving this random assortment of egos –– comedy genius notwithstanding –– a shot at prime time. Hoffman is good in the role, even though despite being the focus you never really get to crawl under his skin.
He certainly receives more of a character arc than almost anyone else, and that’s something of a fault in the film; Reitman and Gil Kenan’s script tries to cover so much ground and include so many people that plenty get lost, or come across as surface portrayals.
Yet there is a real kinetic magic to the movie, and the handful of performances that pop really work. Dylan O’Brien is great as Dan Aykroyd, while Lamorne Morris shines as Garrett Morris, who struggles with his place among the ensemble.
The likes of Rachel Sennott, Matt Wood, Ella Hunt and Cory Michael Smith are all good as key members of the original cast, but they only have so much to do. I’d also single out Tommy Dewey as head writer Michael O’Donoghue, who has some of the best lines in the script and makes them really work.
Veterans including Willem Dafoe and Tracy Letts are sprinkled among them to varying effect, but Reitman lucky charm JK Simmons is the sore thumb –– though he’s funny as old school comic Milton Berle, his storyline is puzzlingly silly and weird.
Overall, if you enjoy slightly ragged stories of how pop cultural bastions went through tough creative birth pains, you’ll find something to like here. I had a good time with the film, but was left wondering whether I might have been better off picking up James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales’ book Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live As Told By Its Stars, Writers, And Guests to get a better handle on it all.
Saturday Night is on wide release in US cinemas now. It’ll be in the UK on 31 January next year.
Image Credit: Briarcliff Entertainment
Last week, I was thrilled to see Sebastian Stan finding more ways to stretch himself on the acting front with the excellent A Different Man, which you should certainly seek out.
He’s back again with another fine performance, this time one based on an all-too-real person. In The Apprentice, Stan plays Donald Trump in a story set during the late 1970s and mid-1980s when America’s Gassy Nightmare was “struggling” (though still a wealthy scion) to achieve his real estate dreams and step out of his father’s domineering shadow.
Directed by Ali Abbasi from Gabriel Sherman’s script, the film charts Trump’s rise as he’s mentored by the powerful, rude attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong of Succession offering a similarly intense performance). As Trump’s cachet and “success” (he’s still a lousy businessman despite seeing many of his big dreams achieved) grow, Cohn’s life and fate take a downward swing.
The Apprentice, which had an understandably rocky road to distribution (to be expected in these turbulent, polarised times), is both superb in its outsiders perspective on the man and yet likely to be perched between two stools in terms of reactions to it. Those who can’t stand the subject matter would argue it gives him too fair a shake (even given some of the vile behaviour on display) and his supporters will complain it’s anti-Trump propaganda.
For all that, it’s a punky, urgent chronicle of a real-life figure and while it does sometimes fall into the biopic trap of clunky nods to the future, it’s impressive and superbly acted. Will it move the needle in either direction for the upcoming election? Unlikely, but I’m happy it exists.
The Apprentice is in US cinemas now. It’ll land in the UK on 18 October.