Saturday Night Live: Natalie Portman (Host), Dua Lipa (Musical Guest), with Alec Baldwin, and Tina Fey
Written by Natalie Portman
Host – Natalie Portman
Melissa: My thoughts going into a Natalie Portman episode in 2018 were the same as they were before Jessica Chastain hosted: can she reconcile her personal and political beliefs with a show that so frequently misses the mark, or will she refuse to compromise for the sake of a cheap laugh?
Where Chastain succeeded I think Portman stumbled a little bit. She’s had a longer time in the spotlight, and a lot of that time was spent being overly serious and studious, desperate not to let her young age become an issue, and determined not to be defined in any way as a sex symbol. I recognize her need to cut loose after all these years, and I commend her for every attempt she makes to do it.
Beyond her serious public persona there is genuine warmth and humor that peaks through; it doesn’t happen often enough, but it reads during several of her performances.
I think that, as usual, there were some missteps the show made: for one, having Alec Baldwin on is becoming an increasingly problematic decision given his recent public outbursts, something that may be hurting its reliability more than the dubious sketches Mark and I have brought up in the past few weeks. But whatever issues the show had last night (and there were myriad technical issues in this episode, so many that I’ll be shocked if half the episode isn’t replaced online with dress rehearsal versions of the sketches), Portman tried her best while also keeping a low profile, a strategy that I found successful.
Case in point: her monologue, which has a team of color commentators delivering commentary on her monologue as though it were an Olympic event. I think this was a brilliant way of taking some of the pressure off Portman, and enjoyed how much of a departure it was from their usual monologue go-to moves. Interestingly enough, they used this same concept in the last episode Portman hosted twelve years ago, where she played Olympic figure skater Sasha Cohen during a Weekend Update segment where she tried to deliver an “Aristocrats” joke as the Update anchors provided color commentary. If I remember correctly, she stumbled a bit on the set up, but ultimately stuck the landing.
Mark’s Favorite Sketch – Natalie Portman Rap 2
The first Natalie Portman rap was legendary. It was totally shocking to see a woman like Natalie Portman, who was always so composed and polite, act like a violent lunatic in the first rap. This 2nd rap (over ten years after the original was released) does the impossible by taking a concept we had successfully digested and still making a worthy follow up.
The highlight of the rap is the already viral part where she forces a man to say nice things about the Star Wars prequels at gunpoint. I believe that the place that the Star Wars prequels holds in the zeitgeist is changing and this is a unique marker culturally. In the first Portman rap, she disses a little girl dressed as her character Queen Amidala. Now, she is yelling at a grown man for not loving her Star Wars movies. This sketch reflects our current moment as a moment where Star Wars was retaken by adults.
Melissa’s Favorite Segment – Pete Davidson’s Weekend Update Segment
I found Pete Davidson’s Update segment to be the best part of the night, and over the years I have done a complete 180 on his Update bits in general. I used to be uninterested in the personal ramblings of Davidson as he talked about his own life, but somewhere along the way I realized how much heart and humor he puts into these.
I often forget that Davidson is as young as he is, and it’s not exactly normal for someone his age to be famous and have experiences such as going to expensive rehab centers for an undiagnosed personality disorder, or having to interview a man on the street about Dockers immediately after finding out the man’s daughter has just been diagnosed with cancer. He makes the most out of all his situations and uses this Update feature as a therapeutic tool.
Appearances like this one make me so glad that his position in the spotlight can provide him with as much of an outlet as it has caused him a bit of trouble.
Worst Sketch – Stranger Things 3
Melissa: Aidy Bryant and Luke Null had good performances in this sketch that I don’t want to sweep under the rug. That being said, the sketch was about a grown man (Mikey Day) playing a pre-teen boy who is, in the context of the sketch, inappropriately preoccupied with kissing his pre-teen female friend, played by an adult woman (Natalie Portman). I couldn’t really get over that enough to relax and enjoy the sketch, but considering most of it was preoccupied with Day’s Mike trying to kiss Portman’s Eleven, there didn’t seem to be much to enjoy.
Mark: I’ve never seen Stranger Things, so this sketch didn’t do much for me.
Musical Guest – Dua Lipa
Melissa: People seem to really like her, so when I saw her somewhat familiar name announced as a musical guest I was like, “cool, now I’ll get to see what she’s all about.” It was good, I guess.
Mark: I didn’t know who this person was before the show, but I thought she her performance of her first song was sexy and fun. I thought her clothes were weird, but I think other people who disagree with me. There are some outfits that women wear that other women like, but I don’t understand. And that’s fine. Not every outfit is worn to impress me.
