Jon M. Chu’s 2021 film adaptation of the Broadway musical In the Heights made me suspect that he wasn’t a particularly skilled director of musicals. His long-gestating film adaptation of Wicked confirmed it. It’s a shame, because even more so than Heights, there’s a legitimately great movie musical rocking around inside that two hour and forty minute runtime somewhere.
That’s not to say that Wicked is a bad movie; in fact, it’s surprisingly good, and that’s coming from someone who possesses a great deal of distaste for Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, a revisionist tale that draws from both L. Frank Baum’s series of books and the classic 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz (it almost entirely eschews fantasy in favor of broad political allegories and moral finger-wagging) and by extension, isn’t a particular fan of its 2003 Broadway musical adaptation, outside of Stephen Schwartz’s poppy and empowering collection of ear worms. Wicked seeks to explore the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West— memorable largely for being such a one-note, cackling villain— set against a rich backdrop of political unrest in Oz. The Wizard of Oz is likely one of the most widely-watched movies of all time the world over, it’s characters and setting such recognizable pop culture icons that even those who haven’t actually watched the film have probably gleaned some knowledge of it through osmosis. It’s to its benefit, then, that Wicked opens with the familiar: the ending of The Wizard of Oz. The Wicked Witch is dead, melted after having water thrown on her by a young girl who ended up in Oz all the way from Kansas. Glinda, the Good Witch (Ariana Grande-Butera), glides into Munchkinland in a bubble to deliver the good news. She’s the picture of perfection and sweetness: bubblegum pink gown, glittering tiara, long blonde locks, and sugary voice. But the cracks in this facade of goodness appear when one of the Munchkins breaks up their joyous celebrations to ask Glinda a question: “Is it true she was your friend?”
The story then jumps back in time. Elphaba Thropp, the product of an affair between her mother and a traveling salesman, is born with green skin, prompting her father, the Governor (Andy Nyman), to all but disown her, and causing her to be ostracized by others throughout her childhood. As an adult (played by Cynthia Erivo), she accompanies her paraplegic younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) to the prestigious Shiz University, but ends up enrolling herself after an outburst causes her to inadvertently display her strong magic powers and brings her to the attention of the Dean of Sorcery, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), who intends to privately teach Elphaba to harness her gifts so that she can potentially someday meet with the Wizard of Oz himself (Jeff Goldblum). Elphaba also quickly becomes the roommate— and enemy— of Galinda, a privileged student who also has her sights set on studying with Madame Morrible. The pair’s blossoming friendship and eventual sisterhood is set against a love triangle with a new student, the Winkie Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey, a perfect blend of charming cad and admirable hero), a mounting discrimination against Oz’s talking Animals such as Shiz’s goat history professor Dr. Dillamond (voiced by Peter Dinklage), who are having their civil rights and abilities to speak snatched away from them.
The latter is a cause that Elphaba is particularly adamant about, seeing in the Animals the same derogatory treatment she endured all her life for merely looking different. Wicked seeks to challenge our notions of good and evil, as much through Galinda as through Elphaba, asking the question, are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them? The former’s shallowness never dissipates, even when her meanness does. While Elphaba commits to actionable change, Galinda’s support for causes is all performative, as when she makes a big show of changing her name from “Galinda” to “Glinda” in honor of the way that Dr. Dillamond always pronounced it. Like so many who are situated in a privileged enough place to afford to, she’d rather stick to the status quo than make waves, even when events are occurring that she recognizes are wrong. Perhaps it’s just because Wicked is arriving on the crest of a particularly charged political climate in America, divided between those who risk having their rights taken away from them, those who have no problem denigrating those who aren’t like them, and those whose complacency and inaction makes them complicit in the latter, that these themes that always seemed overly moralizing to me hit with some actual meaning this go around. But perhaps it’s also because cowriters Dana Fox and Winnie Holzman (who also wrote the book for the Broadway show) struck just the right balance between the novel and the musical, adding in material that allows scenes to breathe and character relationships to grow in largely meaningful ways. Make no bones about it, Wicked is a long movie, and only the first half of the story (Wicked: Part Two is currently slated for theatrical release in November 2025). It only consists of the musical’s first act, yet at two hours and forty minutes, is nearly the exact same length of the entire show (and while it does suffer some from half-movie syndrome, this part of the story at least comes to a finite conclusion). Some of the bloat is unnecessary— a reworking of the number “Dancing Through Life” and the Ozdust Ballroom sequence that needlessly elongates both— the requisite fan service is awkward and irritating— from Broadway cast cameos to a scene devoted to how the yellow brick road became, well, yellow— and the conflict with the Animals doesn’t mesh well with the story of Galinda and Elphaba, often coming across as a distressing yet minor aside, but Wicked is so well-paced between exposition and song-and-dance that its length, while absurd, is rarely felt.
It doesn’t hurt that Erivo and Grande-Butera so effortlessly inhabit their roles (and that, unlike the majority of actors who seem to be cast in movie musicals, can actually sing like their butts off). Erivo, whether on stage or screen, always carries herself with a grace and confidence that serves her well here; even when Elphaba is hurting, only her glassy eyes betray her insecurities. Grande-Butera is equally, if not more, impressive, merging her flair for comedy that she’s exhibited in previous television projects with her stunning four octave range. Even when her failure to enunciate in songs like “Popular” causes the lyrics to not quite hit their mark, she oozes so much personality that technical quibbles hardly matter. This is a bonafide, old school movie star performance, and with her doe-eyed stare and a toss of her hair, she leaps from hilariously vapid to surprisingly perceptive and back again like its nothing. Both actors make choices that prompt their performances to feel like fresh interpretations as opposed to imitations of the originals, which would be all too easy to do (Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth’s performances in the original Broadway cast are a once-in-a-blue-moon instance of stage actors’ fame crossing over into mainstream pop culture). And— equally as integral to the story— they have great chemistry together, making their transition from loathing to loving not only believable, but deeply felt.
But then there’s the look of the film, which sees Chu reuniting with his In the Heights cinematographer Alice Brooks. Chu has a long history with dance on screen (he helmed the first and second Step Up films, and even his 2018 adaptation of the romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians possesses some musical elements), yet he seems disinterested in how bodies move through space, and incapable of properly framing a shot, whether he’s working with a large ensemble or on a solo number. So many of the numbers in Wicked look a little off, either zoomed in too far or not enough, or viewing principal characters from wonky angles, such as from above or behind them. There’s adapting a stage musical for the screen, and then there’s needlessly overloading it with expressly cinematic touches. Take “Loathing,” for example, a catchy duet between Elphaba and Galinda. Chu uses split screen to open the number and further contrast the two characters, but there’s too much independent movement occurring on each side of the frame for it to register as much more than queasy to look at. But he really flubs “Defying Gravity,” the show’s defining power ballad that closes the first act of the show, and therefore serves as the climax of this film. As Elphaba belts her final lines, the scene haphazardly cuts between long shots of her whizzing through the air on her broom and special effects-driven medium shots and close-ups of her flying that see her face at wonky angles. It distracts from the power of the song, and of Erivo’s performance. The visual effects are serviceable overall— outside of the muddy climax, this is a generally bright and colorful film, in line with the 1939 movie— but the horrendous lighting in almost every scene obfuscates the creativeness of the whimsical production design and Paul Tazewell’s marvelous costumes, and the expressiveness of the performances. The lens flares and backlighting in nearly every scene are— like every other technical choice in Wicked that doesn’t work— a confounding element in a movie that otherwise appears like it would look perfectly fine without all that. I hate to judge a movie about not judging people on their appearances on its appearance, but it’s a significant annoyance. Fortunately, Wicked has a lot more to recommend it, from its cast to the music. In a year filled with movie musicals that seem to hate movie musicals (see my thoughts on Joker: Folie à deux and Emilia Pérez), it’s a welcome reprieve to experience a real show-stopper, even one as visually hazy and unstimulating as this.
Wicked is now playing in theaters. Runtime: 160 minutes. Rated PG.
Katie at the Movies 