Over the past two months, I had the pleasure of assistant directing a production of A Christmas Carol that directly lifted elements from The Wizard of Oz. While that may sound like a strange combination, the show itself was cute enough and really drove home one big idea – the world of Oz is absolutely gargantuan. There are dozens upon dozens of books, plenty of legal knots that prevent certain iconic elements from appearing in certain mediums, and of course, the famous Broadway musical Wicked.
Growing up as a musical theatre kid, I always knew what Wicked was, but never saw it. It’s one of those musicals that is distinctly Broadway, so synonymous with the musical theatre community, that it’s probably never going to leave Broadway. If/when it does, it will have the same legacy as Phantom of the Opera when it left. Wicked has defined an entire generation, so it should be no surprise that it would be one of the biggest releases of the year when it was turned into a movie. It has name recognition. It has the pedigree. It has the money. Regardless of whether the film is good or not, it would make over a billion dollars and receive plenty of year-end awards solely because it is a film adaptation of Wicked.
Needless to say, I wasn’t a big fan of it. I can respect what Wicked, or rather, Wicked: Part One, attempts to do, but much like the musical’s reputation on Broadway, the sheer scale and size of this production hampers and limits this story. I think it wasn’t a particularly amazing story in the first place, but it should be more engaging and affecting than it is here.
Wicked: Part One
Director: Jon M. Chu
Release Date: November 22, 2024 (Theatrical)
Rating: PG
Serving as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, Wicked: Part One follows the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) before she became the Wicked Witch of the West. At first, she was a magically gifted girl who people were repulsed by due to her green skin, but eventually, she was granted admittance into Shiz University thanks to the Headmistress, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), to further enhance her magical abilities. While there, she develops a contemptuous rivalry with a popular girl with no talent, Galinda (Ariana Grande). The two eventually become friends and learn magic together, with Elphaba wanting nothing more than to meet the mysterious Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and get a wish granted by him.
Within the first five minutes, it’s very easy to see that this is a gorgeous movie. With highly detailed sets and costumes, Wicked: Part One looks expensive and constantly uses every minute to show off how lavish it is. Not a scene goes by where you’re not at least a little bit impressed by something visually, and that’s all before the film gets to its major setpiece moments. This is a musical after all, and when the film wants to really show off, you’ll see dozens of dancers bouncing around the screen and singers belting their hearts out. I can’t say that these versions are better than the Broadway musical, but they’re better than most movie musical numbers I’ve seen in the past couple of years.
When it’s time for the cast to start singing, most of them are able to hold their own. Jon Chu, to his credit, chose talented singers for most of the major parts, and while I may have some issues with how they deliver their dialogue, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are singers by trade and they own their songs. “Defying Gravity” and “Popular” are showstoppers and while I may have groaned at the thought of people singing along to those songs in theaters, I can totally see why people would want to sing with them. They’re excellent versions of already great songs. Granted, I don’t want people to sing them in the theater and I’m unfathomably lucky that nobody sang in my theater, but I can totally see why people might.
Copyright: Universal
While the big moments within Wicked: Part One work, the stuff in between is a bit more inconsistent. I mentioned before how Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande sing each of their songs wonderfully, but when it comes to acting opposite each other, the chemistry isn’t quite what it needs to be. Ariana Grande plays Galinda like a mixture of Regina George and Karen from Mean Girls, having the stuck-up vibes you would expect but lacking a lot of charisma to back it up. I just never believed for a second that she’s the queen bee of Shiz with the way she walks, talks, and interacts with others. I can see her performance getting an Academy Award nomination if only for how much Ariana Grande commits to the role, but it’s not exactly an interesting role and is fairly one-note. That may be the whole point of her character, but a one-note character is still a one-note character.
This also extends to Cynthia Erivo, but while she’s the stronger of the two in terms of performance, she’s let down by the padded nature of the film. This is a two-hour and forty-minute movie, and while I’ve seen longer movies that justify their long runtime, it’s hard to see how Wicked: Part One does so. It takes these iconic moments and hypes them up with all of this build-up and anticipation that is sure to appease fans of the musical, but to general moviegoers like myself, it comes across as self-aggrandizing. The last scene, in particular, spends so much time setting every piece it needs for the coda of “Defying Gravity” to be as good as it is that it honestly made me lose interest. I should have been thrilled at watching Elphaba soar off into the sky, but all I could think of was how long the movie spent hyping up this moment before dragging out each beat.
For the record, I have nothing wrong with a movie being long. I know people are lobbing criticisms at Wicked: Part One’s length solely because it’s a long movie, but the issue comes down to what it does with that extra time. This first part of a duology is longer than the entirety of the Broadway musical, and that’s not even accounting for the second movie yet to be released. So what does this film adaptation seek to do to expand upon the musical? Honestly, it’s hard to say.
Copyright: Universal
Supporting characters other than Elphaba and Glinda don’t get enough time to develop their characters. Jonathan Bailey’s Fiyero has the making of an arc, where he starts as a self-absorbed prince who slowly learns about the problems facing Oz, but these moments are shoved into two scenes before he’s left behind. Ethan Slater’s Boq and Marissa Bode’s Nessarose fare even worse, as they’re given only a few lines of dialogue for us to believe they’re in a loving relationship that barely gets any screen time. The sole exception to this is Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard, who is meant to be more of a symbol like in the original Wizard of Oz. Outside of that, it’s hard to care about any of the characters, so when the film ends with cutaways showing what everyone’s up to, it leaves absolutely no impact since we barely had time to spend with them.
Subplots are just left on the sidelines for odd reasons. In the first hour, we’re shown how animals are slowly losing their rights and the ability to speak, but we never really see the impact of it in greater detail. We’re stuck with the moments from the musical, but those moments were meant to be small by design. Instead of fleshing out what is supposed to be Elphaba’s primary motivation for seeing the Wizard, we’re left to assume these minor moments are more important than they seem to be because if we don’t, Elphaba’s motivation is fairly weak. It’s interesting how they’re trying to make parallels to the persecution Elphaba faced all of her life and the racist discrimination animals are becoming more subjected to in Oz, but they never do anything with those ideas.
No, Wicked: Part One is more interested in being a greatest hits version of the musical you remember. The iconic scenes are all wonderfully told and a ton of effort goes into them, but every other scene in between gets very little attention. It’s a case of just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Yes, Wicked: Part One can have a gigantic dance number right at the end of the film and with tons of special effects and surprise cameos, but should it at the absence of expanding on the characters that the film is built upon? A part of me says that yes it should, because at the end of the day, this is a musical. Musicals are meant to be these larger-than-life extravaganzas and people are more prone to remember the songs and dances than any bit of dialogue. But I also say no because this is still a movie and a movie that feels wholly incomplete because it decides to emphasize the spectacle over the substance.
Copyright: Universal
Make no mistake, whether or not Wicked: Part One succeeds is irrelevant. It’s going to be a massive hit, the sequel is already filmed and slated to be released next year, and we’ll have this exact same song and dance in a year’s time. But like most movies that directly market themselves as part one of a multipart story, my final assessment of the movie won’t be complete until the sequel is actually out and we can see if the decisions made in Part One pan out or not. Does focusing on these huge musical numbers at the cost of characters work when the sequel won’t have as many showstopper tunes and will need to rely more on character drama?
I can’t say, but for now, people are enjoying Wicked: Part One. It’s driving people to movie theaters and generating a lot of positive buzz. Like Barbenheimer last year, Wicked: Part One is the theatrical event of the year and it sure as hell is going to make you know it. Like the Wizard, it’ll dazzle you with magic and things you’ve never seen before, but when you peel back the curtain, the truth is much more disappointing. Its characters are barely present, its plot is loosely strung together, its side plots are all but forgotten, and it extends its runtime so much that it’s hard to stay consistently engaged. If you love Wicked, you’re going to love Wicked: Part One. If not, then this a decent enough film to watch with the family this Thanksgiving. Just don’t expect it to change your life.
