Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Try telling the story of American comedy without mentioning Saturday Night Live, and see how far you get. For half a century, the sketch show has been a cultural fixture, with countless cast members ascended to stardom. A pity, then, that the big-screen account of the truth behind it has ended up being Saturday Night. The film has good — or at least flattering — intentions. That may be the problem. It is also, to an almost eerie degree, not funny.The date is October 11, 1975, the scene the studios of NBC in the 90 minutes before the first episode of a countercultural folly we are often told is sure to end in disaster. Off-screen, this clock has been set ticking by director Jason Reitman, rebooter of the Ghostbusters franchise. Here, he mounts a deferential tribute to behind-the-scenes genius, in the form of showrunner Lorne Michaels. Michaels’ Toronto vowels were once said to have inspired Dr Evil in the Austin Powers movies. In Saturday Night, he is played by Gabriel LaBelle, previously cast as the young Steven Spielberg in the director’s self-portrait The Fabelmans. As per that Spielberg, this version of Michaels is both prodigy and sweet kid from the sticks, puppyishly keen to blow viewers’ minds.Yet for all that he is centre of events, Michaels is thinly sketched. He still makes more impression than the actors cast as Chevy Chase, John Belushi et al. TV historians may squint too at the pointed framing of the show as a model of backstage feminism, and with only the merest dusting of cocaine use. Seriously, who is this movie for? Nostalgic original fans will just find it airbrushed. Everyone else will leave asking how the hell the show survived, not least when the film is stolen by JK Simmons as old-school comic Milton Berle. The character is meant to embody a stale showbiz order being rightly swept aside. Instead he is given sulphurous vim by Simmons, and you come away thinking how much you’d rather watch that guy live on Saturday night. ★★☆☆☆In UK cinemas from January 31
