by A.J.
Best Pictures #115 2024 (97th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee
“Popular! I'll help you be popular!”
It is a shame that it took so long for the major Broadway musical Wicked to be adapted into a movie for a few reasons. One is simply that it took so long for a stage musical with great songs to come to a medium that can be widely seen by anyone anywhere. The other reasons are to the film's detriment I'm afraid. Wicked debuted on Broadway in 2003, was a major hit, and became influential, directly and indirectly, on other musicals, movies, and books. By 2024 however, many tropes and trends it helped popularize have become tired and cliched. Every time I see yet another movie or read yet another fantasy book that purports to invert “everything you thought you knew” about a well known story, or in which the main character discovers that the revered figure or institution is actually villainous, I roll my eyes. Wicked does not deserve eye rolls but the effect of subverting the familiar world of Oz has been lost.
There are still things to enjoy of course. The highlight for me was the surprising comedic talent of Ariana Grande as the glamorous Galinda, later to be the Good Witch of the North. Her funniest moment happens when she tries to turn green-skinned outcast Elphaba's frumpy coat, or froat, into a ball gown by shaking her training wand and saying "ball gown!" She's shocked when it doesn't work, after all, isn't that how casting spells works? I suppose it helps that she has the performance of the great Kristen Chenoweth, who played the role on Broadway, to help model her own performance.
Once Galinda finally stops being a mean girl and befriends Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the future Wicked Witch of the West, the movie really takes off. They have some wonderful moments together, including Galinda promising to make Elphaba popular (one of the signature songs). Galinda’s makeover of Elphaba turns out to be less about fashion and more about Galinda becoming a nicer person. Erivo handles the songs and dramatic moments well though her best moments are when she and Grande are together. They have much better chemistry as friends than as adversaries which makes the middle section of the movie enjoyable and adds tension to the final moments. Both Erivo and Grande have received Oscar nominations for their performances in the Lead and Supporting categories, respectively.
Wicked’s Oscar nominations for Production Design and Visual Effects are very well deserved. Watching the deleted scenes with unfinished effects and the making-of featurette on the Blu-ray I was impressed by how much of any given set was real and tactile. Despite flaws with the pacing, on this level Wicked certainly qualifies as an impressive achievement. I read complaints about the look of the movie but I saw no problems. I wonder if people were unimpressed by the sights because Oz is a fantasy world that nearly everyone is already familiar with to some degree.
It is not all songs and costumes, of course. There is a plot too. Elphaba, born green and marked as an outcast, is drafted into the Shiz, a sort of school or academy, after one of the teachers, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), witnesses Elphaba's magical talents. She's forced to room with Galinda, the pretty, pink, popular, and mean girl. After seeing the effects of a prank, Galinda has remorse and becomes friends with Elphaba. Although only Elphaba is invited to visit the mysterious and wonderful wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), she brings Galinda along. Together they learn a dark secret truth about their world and their friendship is tested. There are important themes in Wicked, but they, like many side characters and plots, are not fully explored because of what is by far the biggest flaw of the movie.
The big screen adaptation of Wicked unfortunately fell victim to the most cynical and unnecessary trend of current big budget fantasy films: splitting one story over multiple movies. The advertising did not mention it, but this is actually Wicked Part 1. On stage, the entire musical runs at 2 hours 45 minutes. For the movie, the first act of the stage version has been stretched out to be as long as the entire show, so that after 2 hours and 40 minutes we’re only halfway through the story. A few characters have been added but mostly scenes and songs have been stretched and stretched. Many stretch out beyond the breaking point of dramatic effectiveness and lose their poignancy. The scene of Galinda mirroring Elphaba’s dance at a prom-like event to show her newfound empathy lasts so long I went from feeling moved to thinking, “I get it already!” The most egregious example of a scene being stretched and broken up for the sake of runtime is the climactic song Defying Gravity. This wonderful and powerful song happens in fits and starts. It is broken up for dialogue and action beats, including a personal reflective moment for Elphaba, so that it stretches out for almost 14 minutes. I was expecting to be overwhelmed and blown back in my seat but instead I found myself frustrated and wondering if now the movie would let Erivo hit that big finale.
Director Jon M. Chu has made successful movie musicals before, including my beloved In the Heights, but here I think the task of adapting Wicked must have overwhelmed him. The scenes of actual dancing are very well done and lively; he even finds a way to include his favorite touch, people dancing through water. In his commentary track Chu admits that it was difficult to decide what to show and when and for how long. This is unfortunately obvious, especially in Defying Gravity. Chu did his best to make a Part 1 that would stand on its own and it stands, but unevenly.
Wicked, the stage musical, made its debut on Broadway in October of 2003. I started college in New York in September of 2003 and it was all the rage among many of my friends who sang Popular so often that I knew the words without ever listening to the cast recording album. I never saw the original Broadway run and still haven’t seen any stage version, but I am absolutely ready to believe that the show is as fun and enchanting as my friends found it in the fall and winter of 2003. It seems like the movie had a built in fan base ready to like it no matter what–in that way it is like a Marvel movie–but they and my college friends deserve a better movie.
Nominees: Marc Platt, Producer
Director: Jon M. Chu
Screenplay: Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox; based on Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman and the novel by Gregory Maguire
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh
Production Companies: Universal Pictures, Marc Platt Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: November 22nd, 2024
Total Nominations: 10, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Actress-Cynthia Erivo; Supporting Actress-Ariana Grande; Editing-Myron Kerstein; Production Design-Nathan Crowley (production designer)Lee Sandales (set decorator); Costume Design
Paul Tazewell-Makeup and Hairstyling; Frances Hannon, Laura Blount, Sarah Nuth; Original Score-John Powell, Stephen Schwartz; Sound-Simon Hayes, Nancy Nugent Title, Jack Dolman, Andy Nelson, John Marquis; Visual Effects-Pablo Helman, Jonathan Fawkner, David Shirk, Paul Corbould
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