‘Wicked’: Review

Dir. Jon M Chu. US. 2024. 169 mins.

There’s a galvanising sincerity to Wicked, the long-awaited adaptation of the hit musical which traces the back-story of the witches of Oz. It’s so doggedly faithful to the show, so emphatically orchestrated and so powered by Cynthia Erivo’s exceptional performance, that resistance to its 169 minutes of theme park magic becomes futile. This is a film that leaves nothing in the wings — except for an entire second act, and a sequel which has already been shot.

Everything about Wicked is lavish: it is the experience of the show in the round

Everything about Wicked is lavish: it is the experience of the show in the round. And if anything is going to try defy the gravity of the screen it’s this Marc Platt-produced, Jon M Chu-directed candy-coated, ILM-drenched, backlot-staged fairytale. It’s human talent, though, that radiates through the artificiality – in particular Erivo, taking the lead in this first instalment as Elphaba, the green-hued Wicked Witch of The West shunned for her skin colour. Talking animals speak to the film’s sub-plot of Orwellian fascism, but Erivo’s every facial gesture sings to the pain of being ostracised and her purity as a performer brings to mind the ultimate source material the film can never escape – Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz.

That 1939 film, also shot on a backlot, runs to 102 mins. Wicked’s daunting run-time of 169 mins and doggedly earnest tone may make this less of a four-quadrant film and more of a heavy hitter for teens and above when it rolls out globally from November 21, helped by co-star Ariana Grande’s worldwide fame (her role as Glinda the Good will apparently be more emphasised in Part II). Saturation media coverage and a US opening weekend which coincides with Gladiator II should see genuinely wicked returns for Universal, and any fall-off will eventually be bolstered by repeat viewings for the super-fans this material attracts (of all Oz lore, of musical theatre. LGBTQI+ audiences and everything in between).

That Oz lore has become increasingly complicated, sprawling out from L Frank Baum’s children’s novel published in 1900. Gregory Maguire’s ’Wicked’ series of novels, starting in 1995, form the source material but are not the same as the Wicked musical, whose producer and writers/composers reunite and re-adapt here (Platt, with Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwarz). That’s the benchmark by which Wicked, and Wicked fans, will want the film to be judged: as an adaptation. On that level, it’s faithful, well-acted, beautifully sung (for the most part), and prone to losing its train of thought. Aesthetically, yes, it’s a super-loaded piece of theatrical artificiality.

But this Wicked is a film too. Much of it takes place in the magical Shiz university, where Elphaba meets Glinda and their fates are secured. Since Maguire first wrote his novels, and Wicked took to the stage in 2003, the eight-film Harry Potter francise has locked screen magic into Hogwarts. And there’s something about the increasingly AI nature of the visuals we’re currently consuming as a society that make this artificial Oz somehow less aesthetically appealing. Perhaps it’s a longing for the cleaner art deco lines of The Wizard Of Oz, or Harry Potter’s blend of the real and fantasy, but Wicked lacks a sense of fresh air.

Wicked starts out with a zoom from that legendarily lethal bucket of water into a poppy-loaded Munchkinland (Munchkins now defined by their red hair, as opposed to their size) where the oppressed population celebrates the death of Elphaba, The Wicked Witch of The West, as announced by Glinda the Good (Grande) with the dramatic ‘No-One Mourns The Wicked’. From there, Glinda jumps into backstory — right back, to the story of Elphaba’s birth, her ostracisation by her munchkin mayor father and her arrival at Shiz, where her magical powers are noted by the cool Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh, who unfortunately gulps at her sung lines.)

There’s all sorts of high school shenanigans here, of course: forced to share a room, the pink princess Glinda and the despised Elphaba become enemies; the object of desire Prince Fiyero (an unthreateningly handsome Jonathan Bailey) arrives with a dash; and there’s some small amount of humour (but probably not enough) from Glinda’s bitchy acolytes played by Bowen Yang and Bronwyn James. There’s also a courtship between Elphaba’s disabled sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) and munchkin Boq (Ethan Slater) which adds little beyond minutes to the runtime. The theme of the capture and extinction of talking animals (particularly the goat professor Dr Dillamond, voiced by Peter Dinklage) doesn’t hold enough of the film-makers’ attention to sustain itself, at least for this part of the film.

All roads – always – lead to the Emerald City, where the Wonderful Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) awaits in a city which is disappointingly less than the sum of its CGI.

While Goldblum’s presence as the dubious Wizard lends a dual note of warmth and gravitas, it has already long since been clear that Erivo’s Elphaba will carry this film on her broomstick. From the (according to the notes) nine million tulips planted by the film’s production department, to the boats that dock at a Shiz academy that looks alarmingly like Las Vegas’s Venetian Hotel, and on to the Emerald City Express, our eyes are fixed on Erivo, with Grande always graceful at her side. (The novel Wicked is Elphaba’s first-person account, while the musical emphasises both roles.)

A Black actress playing a green witch could seem to overload Elphaba’s outsider status, but Erivo masters every subtle grace note to give a performance that is both accomplished and emotional. Garland also captured that same sincerity of wounded, innocent yearning in an entirely different way (not a comparison that should be made lightly, admittedly).

Composer and lyricist Schwarz fills the screen and the room with orchestrations that really do bring back the memory of the full-blown Hollywood musical. Adaptations that have taken this pre-Christmas exhibition slot of late – from Wonka to West Side Story, Mary Poppins, The Greatest Showman and beyond – have tended to shuffle around the full embrace of the screen musical’s baked-in staginess. Joker: Folie A Deux even denied itself as a musical. Holzman, who wrote the musical book and adapts it here, embraces it all, including the peculiar Ozian language, enhancing the otherworldliness of where the film is taking us. Combined, it’s a propulsive force to be reckoned with. Or should that be a melting force?

What happens next? Wicked dares to leave the audience at the half-way mark, with Part II already shot and set for release this time next year (November 21, 2025).  That’s beautiful wickedness indeed.