A24 has a new youth-oriented comedy out this week, and at first glance Y2K shares plenty of common ground with other titles from the studio: It’s a culturally specific throwback, set on New Year’s Eve 1999 (shades of Jonah Hill’s Mid90s, complete with skateboarding, plus Hill on board as producer); the action is catalyzed at a house party where things take a dark but funny turn (shades of Bodies Bodies Bodies); and there’s a sweet coming-of-age angle, albeit not quite as seriously heartfelt as Lady Bird, Eighth Grade, or Aftersun. What separates the movie from its A24 brethren, however, and makes it feel like a hybrid of the pre-2000 studio comedy and the most prestigious indie of the 2020s, is Kyle Mooney, who directs, co-writes, and co-stars in the film.

As a big fan of Mooney’s whole deal, I can nonetheless understand anyone who asks: Why him? Not because Mooney isn’t funny; he did nine years on Saturday Night Live, often collaborating on filmed pieces with fellow cast member Beck Bennett and director Dave McCary. Their pre-SNL sketch group Good Neighbor, which also included future SNL writer Kevin Rutherford, was obviously tapped as sort of a de facto Lonely Island replacement. To their credit, Good Neighbor didn’t seem interested in chasing that marquee level of pop-parody showcase, sometimes appearing to take their occasional relegation to cut-for-time online bonuses as a badge of honor. Mooney, Bennett, and McCary fixated on awkward displays of attempted masculinity not unlike some Andy Samberg characters (or, before him, Will Ferrell), but there was something even sadder and less just-kidding adorable beneath their often-retro-accented antics. Characters like Mooney’s hacky, needy stand-up comic Bruce Chandling are off-putting by design; it’s stuff for the comedy nerds, not the more casual viewers who delight in cast members pulling faces or playing outsized, catchphrase-friendly characters.

But maybe Mooney’s attention to satirical detail makes him a good fit for the movies. Good Neighbor made their kinda-sorta version of Hot Rod with McCary’s Brigsby Bear, where Mooney plays a grown man who finds out that his life in a post-apocalyptic bunker watching tapes of a children’s TV show has been a lie; there’s no apocalypse, his “parents” are kidnappers, and the show was made by them to keep him placid. It’s a surprisingly sincere movie, more weird and whimsical than cringe-heavy (though there is some of that). At the time of its 2017 release, it seemed to portend a more niche future for SNL alumni as big-ticket theatrical comedies have waned in popularity or migrated to streaming. The days of an unproven movie lead like Andy Samberg getting 3,000 screens for Popstar or Hot Rod, then waiting several years for an appreciative cult to develop following its flop, seemed to be over.

It feels remarkable, then, that Mooney’s directorial debut is going out into wide release from A24. Look through the SNL cast that was establishing itself alongside Mooney in the mid-2010s: Vanessa Bayer and Aidy Bryant pop up in small supporting roles in movies, but have only been leads on short-season cable TV series. Pete Davidson got an autobiographical Apatow movie that was released with minimal fanfare during peak COVID. Cecily Strong has done some good work on the New York stage. Kate McKinnon, one of the most popular stars in the show’s history, is more of a pinch-hitter and voiceover actress in movies after the whole Ghostbusters fiasco. (Sure, she was in Barbie, but she sure wasn’t starring in Barbie.) Consider this, too: Bill Hader was a major creative force behind the acclaimed TV show Barry, of which he directed several episodes that were considered a sign of a potentially impressive big-screen career. How did Mooney wind up directing a movie before he did?

Presumably his obsessiveness helps fuel his vision. (It also might not hurt that he has friends in high places: McCary is now married to Emma Stone, though neither of them produced Y2K.) Mooney is apparently a VHS collector, and before the titular bug leads to a robot uprising and an alternate version of the earliest moments of 2000, Y2K reflects that sensibility, with needle-drops, oddball references, and junk-culture recreations that will be familiar to any fans of Mooney’s SNL work. There, Mooney and Bennett often recreated stuff like banal early-’90s sitcoms, or dorky white-rap music videos; over on Netflix, Mooney co-created Saturday Morning All-Star Hits, a riff on Saturday morning cartoon blocks of the ’80s and ’90s. Yet his work also might hold some appeal for younger viewers who might not remember this stuff directly, because it’s easily excerpted for YouTube clips in the digital now; in fact, the wealth of weird old ads and uploaded VHS clips on YouTube and the like make Mooney’s comedy an ideal compromise between the amateurish screaming of streaming-grown creators and the old-fashioned polished of classic sketch comedy.

Compared to the level of cultural excavation Mooney performs in some of his best and weirdest pieces, the details of Y2K might seem relatively conventional, especially when they give way to a story about kids from different social groups coming together, and whether the nerdy boy (Jaeden Martell) will win the heart of the popular girl (Rachel Zegler), who is also a hacker for some reason. But in its relatively accessible and hyper-nostalgic way, Y2K also gets at the appeal of Mooney (whose on-screen appearance in the film is playing the kind of good-vibes burnout he often inhabited on SNL). The movie understands both the allure of pop-cultural objects that we attach ourselves to in youth (also a major theme of Brigsby Bear, obviously) and the way that we turn this junk into flimsy signifiers of our identity.

To some extent, the movie playfully rejects those allegiances, especially with the deployment of a surprisingly prominent celebrity cameo in the movie’s final stretch. Y2K also, it must be said, backs away from anything too crazy or envelope-pushing, even in terms of cringe comedy, never mind genuinely piercing satire. At times, it feels a little like Mooney sanitizing his sensibility for the mainstream in a way that – to the show’s credit – he never totally had to on SNL. (It’s also something that ought to give the folks at A24 a little pause about their own renegade-indie identity.) At the same time, Y2K never feels like an audition for Mooney to make the next big franchise movie, despite its sci-fi and horror trappings. If anything, it feels like an invitation for other SNL alumni to make movies this devoted to their weirdo personas.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.