Jonah Naplan November 21, 2024
“Wicked” is going to be everything that theater kids are hoping for. It’s an epic of music and visual spectacle that practically hinges on leaping off the screen. That it’s only the first half of a much larger tale is only one of its many gifts, and you leave frustrated that you’ll have to wait patiently for who knows how long to return to the magical world of Oz. Director Jon M. Chu knows how to leave you breathless from a big musical number as he previously showed with the excellent “In the Heights,” but this time he’s working with an almost tripled budget and a timeless tale chocked full with legendary characters and songs that have helped to define Broadway as we know it for the last twenty years. He’s brought in the right people for the job, including Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda respectively, who bring an energy to their parts that is infectious and is sure to inspire many young girls in the audience to pursue musical theater. I hope this wonderful movie becomes as popular as it deserves to be.
I first saw Stephen Schwartz’s 2003 musical at the age of 10 and was so enthralled by its majesty and musical thrust that I took a mental note to pursue as many performing arts opportunities as I could from there on out. It’s a remarkable achievement of vocals and production value from the ridiculously talented performers to the set design and special effects. The roles of Elphaba and Glinda made the careers of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth and their characters have been idolized ever since. When I met Chenoweth after one of her concerts several months ago, she asked me what my interests were, and when I enthusiastically replied “musical theater,” she said she could already “feel that aura” coming from me. There was so much riding on this feature film adaptation, and it satisfies on almost every level.
Of course, “Wicked” is a prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” (which itself has a famous 1939 film adaptation that will surely see spikes in viewership over the next month), and it tells the story of how the Good Witch met the Bad Witch when they were both young women and how one turned her back to the world when exposed to its corruption. That villainess’s name was Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the green-skinned newest addition to Shiz University alongside her paraplegic little sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode). They’ve both survived tough childhoods, having been discriminated against and made fun of because of their differences, and will face similar criticism at the academy. Elphie is lucky to find unlikely allies in the kindly charming Boq (Ethan Slater) and, of course, the pampered, “popular” Galinda (Ariana Grande). She’s also being closely observed by the audacious Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) whose elegant mystery is a force throughout the movie’s entire runtime.
The arrival of the impossibly handsome Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) to Shiz makes both Elphie and Galinda swoon, and his number “Dancing Through Life” in the school’s magical rotating library is a showstopping delight. Chu is a man of strategy, setting up Fiyero’s role as a love interest with chronic persistence, an effort that will be way too obvious for some and a treat to others. “Wicked” and all its creators know exactly what the audience wants. It’s a film very much in line with last year’s “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” with its teen romance appeal and attractive faces. Both the people on-screen and the world they inhabit are gorgeous sights, displaying the best visual effects and production design that Hollywood money can buy.
All the musical numbers are astounding. Chu’s returning choreographer Christopher Scott completely delivers on the breathless spectacle we want from a “Wicked” movie. Everything, from the pompous “What Is This Feeling?” to “Popular” to Elphaba’s spine-rattling ballad “Defying Gravity,” is executed with sincere charm and professionalism. This is a movie created by adult theater kids who LOVE “Wicked,” and they’ve dedicated pieces of themselves to every frame. In an era where drab-looking, CGI-coated, big-budget movies increasingly dominate the cinematic market, “Wicked” feels like a welcome breath of fresh air of vibrant color, poignancy and tiny, thoughtful details that you’ll only catch if you keep your eyes open. Cinematographer Alice Brooks builds out these fantasy worlds through a sensational use of pink and green, symbolizing the difference in personality between Elphie and Galinda, two strangers turned friends turned enemies. The grounds of Shiz and all its many classrooms and dormitories teem with magic, and once the two young women arrive in Oz, the set design shifts to portray a wondrous metropolis that’s sort of like the New York City of this fairytale world.
Of course, Oz is ruled over by the Wizard himself (here played by the benign face of Jeff Goldblum) and his variety of magical gadgets and gizmos that disguise the corruption plaguing the city. A subplot involving the domestic persecution of intelligent animal life, including Elphie and Galinda’s own beloved (goat!) professor Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) feels especially pertinent, an inhumanity that helps to fuel Elphaba’s rage towards Oz’s authoritarian regime and ultimately coerces her into turning to the dark side. Erivo conveys every little emotion and nuance hidden inside the Wicked Witch with remarkable aplomb, making her a top contender for this year’s Best Actress race. Of course, her vocals are astonishing, but that’s to be expected coming from the Tony winner. What’s most impressive is how she traces the evolution of her character—innocent and humble to rageful and revenge-stricken—from beginning to end, an epic character arc in an epic, 160-minute movie.
Perhaps the film is a bit too long, being that it’s only the first half of a musical that was ten minutes shorter to begin with. There’s certainly moments where I wished Chu and his screenwriters Dana Fox and Winnie Holzman could have dropped the exposition monologuing and let the characters really sing, but it’s never a boring movie and the entire cast, from the leads to Galinda’s flamboyant sidekicks played by Bowen Yang and Bronwyn James, seems devoted to keeping us engaged at every moment. Like the best musicals, the background characters in “Wicked” are just as important as the principals, filling out this world and making it feel lived-in. Obviously, so much of the film is heavily green-screened and computer-generated and nothing about it is technically “real” in the traditional sense, and yet there’s still something so alive and human about it, as if we’re watching a timeless fable that’s been passed down for generations, reimagined and revitalized just for us.
“Wicked” made me excited to see what’s gonna happen in the next movie, even though I already know what’s coming. It’s a great film because it finds pathological and cinematic ways to create intrigue around a story that we already know and love. The tale is all the same, but it’s being told in a new light, through new technology and tools that were not available in 2003, and through the voices of talents who weren't even adults twenty years ago. That we’re finally getting our “Wicked” right here right now is a gift that we’ll treasure for years to come. People who love musicals are gonna love it. People who don’t love musicals are gonna love it. And people who love movies are gonna love it.
Now playing in theaters.