Wicked: Part One (2024)
A spoiler-free review.
A Wickedly Worthy Return to Oz
Wicked: Part One — John Chu’s cinematic adaption of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s 2003 Broadway musical adaption of Gregory Macguire’s 1995 novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which reimagines L. Frank Baum’s 1900 story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz — has finally reached the silver screen.
Over the years, Oz has proved cinematically inhospitable for other filmmakers seeking to follow the yellow brick road. Alas, all roads lead back to The Wizard of Oz (1939), and those Ruby Red slippers are difficult to fill. Disney’s Return to Oz (1985) was nightmare fuel for children, and their 2013 “spiritual prequel,” Oz the Great and Powerful, was mediocre at best.
125 years after Baum penned his original story and 85 years after Victor Fleming adapted it to the screen in stunning technicolor, Wicked: Part One offers viewers a worthwhile return to somewhere over the rainbow, replete with all the visual splendor modern technology can render. Chu’s film succeeds where others have failed, but Wicked: Part One stops short of defying gravity.
For all of Wicked’s successes, and there are many, the film cannot, and will never, rival the cinematic wonder of Flemings's Old Hollywood classic. Nevertheless, Wicked: Part One is a laudable second-best and an excellent example of a movie musical done right.
Wicked: Part One begins with a celebration throughout Oz following the exploits of Dorothy and her gang of merry misfits. As Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande) delivers the good news to Munchkinland, the town revels in the fact that “no one mourns the wicked.”
Glinda affirms the crowd’s reaction and quickly turns to depart. She is halted by a pointed question from the crowd: “Is it true you were her friend?”
“Yes,” Glinda the Good Witch admits, “but it was a long time ago.”
What follows is the story of an unlikely friendship between the it-girl, Glinda Arduenna Upland, and the verdant misfit, Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), formed during their time at Shiz University.
Grande is always clad in elaborate pink garments and sporting platinum blonde hair that she tosses to and fro in a manner sure to delight “the girls, gays, and theys.” She is the “good witch” by way of Elle Woods, with a dash of Regina George. She floats through the film in a bubble of daft narcissism, an offputting trait successfully tempered by amusing fits of theatrics and silly tantrums.
There’s no doubt that Grande is suited to the role. Her voice flits about in dazzling soprano tones that the role, originally played on Broadway by Kristin Chenoweth, demands. However, singing at the top of her vocal range, Grande’s enunciation is lacking. Her lyrics in the first song are nigh on incomprehensible, which is unfortunate.
Setting aside issues with enunciation, Grande delivers a winning performance. She effortlessly and believably commands the attention of her fellow students. She is a delightful buffoon whose foolhardy ambition sets the story in motion.
Elphaba’s humble confidence effectively offsets Glinda’s spoiled brattishness. Born with green skin, she has always been treated as an outcast. Only once she arrives at Shiz is her latent power appreciatex, offering her the opportunity to be known for her talents rather than defined by her differences.
Vocally, Erivo also delivers the goods, stepping into the role originally played by Adele Dazeem.1 She embodies a social outcast deserving of sympathy rather than pity. She blazes through the film with determination, exerting agency, and always acting in accordance with the moral and ethical framework she has formed independent of the norms of the society that rejected her. Along the way to wickedness, her character grapples with allegorical racism and an increasing disillusionment with the fascist power structures that control Oz.
Most delightful of all, Chu brings the Tony-winning musical to the silver screen with a full, unabashed embrace of the style and sensibilities of a proper movie musical. What is a proper movie musical, you might wonder? To me, a proper movie musical utilizes the unique capabilities of the cinematic medium to present soundstage performances in novel and interesting ways that are only possible through the lens of a camera.
Tom Hooper’s Oscar-winning Les Misérables (2012) heralded a new era of “realism” in musicals. Musicals, whose spontaneous musical interludes are the antithesis of realism, have struggled to find their footing in the landscape of popular contemporary cinema. Hooper’s penchant for realism culminated in Cats (2019), and we all know how that went.
To me, the affective potential of movie musicals is embodied in the work of Busby Berkley, who did most of his work in the 1930s, the same decade MGM released The Wizard of Oz.
The Wicked: Part One can’t replicate the magic of Berkley’s choreography or hold a candle to Fleming’s film may not be a fair criticism to levy. It’s been nearly 100 years since “the gold standard” of movie musicals against which I consider the Wicked’s cinematic merits.
Busby Berkley has long since passed, and the 1939 Wizard of Oz will always be the definitive cinematic odyssey into Oz. Nevertheless, Wicked: Part One proudly carries forth the grandiose mantle of the movie musical with aplomb and invites a new generation of viewers into the wonderful world of Oz.
For that, I am thankful.
Happy Thanksgiving, Film Freaks. Until next time.
Legally named Idina Menzel, renamed and reborn by John Travolta at the 2014 Oscars Ceremony.