Directed By Morgan Neville

Starring – Lorne Michaels, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey

The Plot – Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live (1975), offers unprecedented access to the man who built and sustained the institution for five decades.

Rated R for adult language and a sexual reference.

LORNE – Official Trailer [HD] – Only In Theaters April 17

POSITIVES

Even in etching such an unmistakable legacy that has made Saturday Night Live a cultural landmark for over fifty years in the stratosphere of late night television, still so very little has been thoroughly documented about the show’s iconic creator, Lorne Michaels, who prides himself on being the elusive figure behind the scenes who controls every intimate detail of the show’s execution, and while Morgan Neville’s film doesn’t fully succeed or satisfy in its attempt to pull back the curtain to reveal the intimate details of Lorne’s private life away from the stage, it does provide an affectionately sincere and comedically comprehensive biography about his irreplaceable presence to the show’s integrity, offering an insightfully deconstructive look at the ins and outs of the show that is sure to please its legion of die-hard enthusiasts. While the opportunity is rarely afforded, Neville feels like the perfect man to helm a documentary aimed directly at one of television’s longest survivor, not only with the familiarity of Neville’s cheeky tone enacting the kind of good-natured experience that keeps the atmosphere engaging, despite the film’s many focal points occasionally delving into some of the lonelier moments of Lorne’s rare-but-captured failures, but also the assembling of jigsaw pieces that makes up such a prestigious career in the industry, as seen through the uniquely sprawling scope of simultaneous structures that make up the movie’s storytelling, with the foreground narrative sifting through a week in the lead-up linearly to a produced episode of the show, while the background takes aim at a litany of scattered flashbacks that help fill the void of his personal and artistic history, clueing us into the many challenges and remarkable level of commitment that it takes for a show of this magnitude to succeed for such a long stint, with the uncomfortable-but-engaging excerpts of Neville’s year-long interviews with Lorne being utilized to steer psychology and meaning to memorably infamous moments that are grounded by Lorne’s optimistic outlook towards them, even as a man who has been kicked down more times than he’s been inspired within such a thankless industry. Lorne’s interviews certainly give the film an elevated appeal amongst other unofficially authorized Saturday Night Live projects, to which there are no shortage of, however it’s the admirably honest reflections from an abundance of former cast-members and collaborators that lend individualized assessments of Lorne that articulate the intimidation factor of interacting with such a larger than life personality amongst them, especially once the depths of the camera’s wandering accessibility goes into never-before-seen places behind the scenes that corroborate the anxieties and tension of pitching to a man who demands perfection in an imperfect artform. Those prestigious names assembled certainly conjure a compelling form of personality that helps get it through the tedium associated with long-form documentaries, but beyond that, effectively measure the mystique of Lorne’s much-rumored background that only grows all the more curious with the speculative theories between them interlacing to materialize this restlessly neurotic genius who truly dances to the beat of his own drum, providing a profoundly poignant underlining that unexpectedly conveys this corresponding loneliness of being this dependable force without the ability to get lost in madness of his accomplishments. While the substance of the project’s focus certainly comes through in the fold, the stimulating style of Neville’s presentation is ultimately what takes center stage in his maintained grip on the attention span of a wandering audience, particularly his utilizing of Robert Smiegel’s TV Funhouse animation, which fantastically exaggerates the many aforementioned theories of Lorne’s lifestyle, that are enacted brilliantly with an unrelenting hilariousness to Dana Carvey’s legendary impression acting them out, in turn leaving me yearning for a weekly TV show of such a brilliant idea that deserves to be capitalized upon. If this isn’t enough, the approval from Lorne also gives Neville limitless access in the archive of some of Saturday Night Live’s most iconic skits, feature length films, and ensuing moments, certainly providing contextual visuality that correspond seamlessly with the many talking points of the guests, featuring masterful editing continuously deviating between past and present, but also proverbial proof of Lorne’s adaptability to change with the times, enacting an occasionally raunchier side to the show that, like Lorne, allowed it to age gracefully among the masses, in turn leaving the level of its scope between those who actually lived it, which wields an intimately insightful experience centered around a man who lived for privacy.

NEGATIVES

Though much about Lorne is entertainingly engaging for hardcore Saturday Night Live fanatics, such as myself, there are some underwhelming aspects with Neville’s execution that will leave casual audiences squirming in their seats with increasing impatience, particularly the incapability of its marketing gimmick towards finally offering an insightfully expansive look at this vital figure shrouded in secrecy. While the film definitely clues us into influential aspects in and around the show that effectively articulate Lorne’s unmeasurable impact towards it, granting us a thoroughly illustrated look at the man off-screen goes disappointingly unfulfilled, with so many of his moments away from the show refusing to delve deeper in the ways those moments pertaining to the show never even remotely flinched at, and while I can understand Lorne’s reluctance with opening his private life up to the dog-eat-dog world of the paparazzi, in all of its remorseless toxicity, I feel like it was the only thing that could’ve made this documentary feel like a truly special engagement, instead settling for more of the career retrospective route, which while satisfying for a man who deserves his own chapter in the history of television, doesn’t exactly provide anything new for those of us well-versed in Lorne’s meteoric rise to the top. While this is obviously detrimental to the authenticity surrounding the film, it’s just as misfocused on the integrity of the film’s objective, where a sharp deviation to the execution during the second half of the picture has this feeling like a documentary that is more about the show, rather than the titular figure who breathed life into a daringly innovative concept. It goes without saying that Lorne and Saturday Night Live will be interlinked for the rest of eternity, however once the aforementioned foreground arc sifting through the ins and outs of a weekly operational episode of Saturday Night Live takes commanding precedent over its secondary arc pertaining to Lorne’s historical rise, the focus of the talking points seem more aimed at the impressiveness of the show, rather than the man who commands them, and considering it’s not the only lapse of poor judgement to Neville’s direction, it deteriorates the seamless fluidity of its narrative structure as a result, leaving some individual arcs unceremoniously dumped during strangely surreal moments that don’t line up substantially with what’s being discussed. Such an example pertains to an arc involving Lorne’s collaboration with Lily Tomlin, during the early 70’s, long before his stint on SNL. While it definitely makes sense to include Tomlin as a means of discussing Lorne’s building confidence, its tardiness towards the linearity of the narrative robs prior scenes of vital context, most notably that Michaels was already an Emmy-winning producer when he started SNL, forcing a jarringly jerking abrasiveness among the movie’s focus that definitely deserved more time in the post-production editing chair, in order to flesh out contextual relevancy through its talking points. Finally, while Neville obviously makes sacrifices to the intended focus of Lorne’s journey, considering his producing credits include a litany of shows and movies that extend far beyond his work at SNL, some of the excessively trimmed fat is disappointing to say the least, especially The Kids in the Hall or an abundance of big screen movies, which receive no semblance of notoriety among his artistic influence, in turn overlooking fascinatingly compelling arcs to enhance the magnitude that this story covers. While I commend Neville for including The New Show, a mid-80’s 9-episode failure that Lorne modeled as SNL for grownups, I think his grasp on the material extends in reach what’s it’s able to pluck with grasp, leaving this an at-times underexplored experience that doesn’t fully lend itself to feature-length, in turn deserving of the kind of multi-part treatment that Pee-Wee Herman received last year for his HBO documentary Pee-Wee as Himself.

OVERALL
Lorne occasionally folds under the pressure of pursuing the documentary’s main subject with attainable insight, but nevertheless offers an entertainingly informative experience for SNL enthusiasts that gets us closer to the ins and outs of the show than ever previously granted, made all the more affectionately endearing by Morgan Neville’s gently glowing and mythological direction inspiring an artistic adoration for the man who gave his whole life for comedy. With a limitless army of celebrity speaking guests as well as stunning animation that hilariously and imaginatively correspond with many of the film’s talking points, Neville’s cheeky execution is able to overcome some of its detracting elements, eliciting a satisfyingly safe experience that isn’t quite ready for primetime

My Grade: 6.8 or C+