It has taken Wicked 20 years to make it to the big screen. Though speculation could abound for days about why that was, the first film in this two-part adaptation proves that it was worth the wait. Even as other Wizard of Oz-adjacent stories and spinoffs have come and gone, Wicked flies onto screens with a bold spirit and a stark level of technical craft that is starting to feel more and more rare in Hollywood. Wicked is not only one of the most entertaining blockbusters of the year, it’s one of the most confident.
Diving into the history of the Wicked Witch of the West in Oz, Wicked reveals the interconnected backstory of Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande) and their formative years together at Shiz University. Elphaba is quickly enrolled at Shiz when Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) notices her potential, while Galinda herself strives to learn the ways of magic despite being rebuffed by the professor. Although Elphaba and Galinda are initially forced into being roommates, they ultimately develop a bond, their lives becoming tied to a larger conspiracy at the core of Oz itself.
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Erivo and Grande receive co-billing at the top and in the credits of Wicked, but, in truth, the film succeeds in large part because of how compelling Erivo’s performance is. There’s confidence in every step that Erivo takes as Elphaba, even before the character really arrives at a moment where her larger ambitions are starting to make themselves clear. She delivers a fully realized character from the moment she steps onto the screen, but also manages to evolve Elphaba over the course of her own growth in the film. It’s spirited and dynamic acting, showing off Erivo’s range and ability.
Grande is at her best when she is actively making her performance of Galinda into something that is her own. There are times when it feels like she’s leaning too hard into the characterizations that Kristin Chenoweth made iconic within the original Broadway show, a facsimile that doesn’t hold up. Luckily, this is not the bulk of what she does in the film, and Grande excels most when she relies on her own comedic timing as well as finding ways to sit in a dramatic moment.
The remaining ensemble for Wicked may be one of the only places where the film version doesn’t fully reach its potential. One standout is Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero, the Winkie prince who quickly makes a mark on Shiz after his enrollment. Bailey is not only charming and funny throughout, but exudes an energy that many of the other supporting players simply lack. Ethan Slater as Boq and Marissa Bode as Nessarose are good in the few scenes they get, but the characters themselves don’t have a lot to do just yet. Even Michelle Yeoh, despite a captivating presence, feels underutilized, and the same can be said for Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz. This is where the two-part division of the story hangs over the head of the entire film, giving some parties much less to do as it prepares to develop them further in the sequel.
There are, however, two masterful tricks that director Jon M. Chu wields that elevate the storytelling of Wicked while also making it feel like a cinematic event. The first is that Chu uses the familiarity audiences may already have with the musical to subvert their expectations about what will happen next. Many times throughout Wicked, Chu knows that the audience is likely well aware what the next beat in a song will be or how it will transition into another musical number, but he takes these instances and stretches them out with a pause. It leaves the audience captivated; not only are they taken by surprise by the fact they’re expecting the next part of the musical itself, but they don’t know when this specific interlude will end.
This leads into the second big trick that Chu manages to pull off: using those engrossing pauses as an opportunity to capture the minutiae of a personal sequence in the story. On the stage, the actors in Wicked have to be big to make the emotional beats of their performance easily visible in the back row; on the big screen, Chu allows the performers a chance to express something that can’t be glimpsed from every seat of a Broadway theater and transforms it into the only thing you can see.
I would be remiss if I didn’t specifically shout out the cinematography of Wicked, which was expertly executed by Alice Brooks, a frequent Chu collaborator, having worked on In the Heights and other projects with the filmmaker. There is a sweeping quality to the movement and scope of the camera in Wicked. Brooks makes sure to enhance these previously noted emotional beats by putting the camera in a place that a stage performance cannot offer, but, on the macro scale, she also deliberately showcases every dollar on the screen. These are huge sets with energy embedded into them by not only moving parts but the choreography itself, and she manages to display it in a way that is always captivating.
Wizard of Oz fans may balk at some of the forced connectivity present in some of Wicked’s plot, as some of the prequel elements do border on providing answers to questions we never needed to know, but even with that as a minor hindrance, the level of craft that has gone into bringing this to life is undeniable. The movie version of Wicked doesn’t take anything away from the stage show; instead, Chu’s film enhances the original musical at nearly every turn.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Wicked lands in theaters on November 22nd.
