What To Watch This Weekend: Wicked

We’re in a second golden age of musicals. Like The Greatest Showman in 2017, the criminally underrated West Side Story reboot in 2021, the plain criminal Cats in 2019 and Barbie in 2023, Wicked is this year’s big-screen, big-score film event. As someone who’s seen the stage version a lot and once had a flatmate whose iPod accidentally shuffled ‘No Good Deed’ onto a house party playlist, I’m happy to report that Wicked has so much to excite and please fans.

It's taken a while to get here. After two decades on stage, Wicked has become one of the most loved Broadway productions. The musical is itself an adaptation of a 1995 novel that was itself a prequel to the 1939 Technicolour phenomenon that was Judy Garland’s The Wizard of Oz. Given the rich source materials at his disposal, it’s understandable that director Jon M. Chu (In The Heights, Crazy Rich Asians) decided to split the film in two. Based on our audience’s closing reaction to this month’s release, we’re confident saying the second part will also be worth the wait.

For those who need a refresher, Wicked flips the original narrative of The Wizard of Oz, unearthing the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West, who young, red-shoed Dorothy was tasked with usurping. Instead of tracking the skies with her broomstick and gaggle of winged apes, hellbent on death and destruction, Wicked shows Elphaba as the human behind the outcast with the green skin – focusing in on her complicated relationship with golden girl Glinda the Good.

This is the relationship that has captured hearts in the lead-up to the film’s release. Stage icon Cynthia Erivo (The Color Purple, Harriet) and singing supernova Ariana Grande star as Elphaba and Glinda respectively. Throughout the press tour, the pair have been dressed in the green and pink of their characters, giggling, crying and hugging their way through interviews with the intimacy of close friends. Watching the film – especially the closing scenes, as the two are forced to go their separate ways – confirms the connection is real.

As in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story adaptation, the big, multi-cast numbers feel like a stage production, especially film opener ‘No One Mourns The Wicked’, which is set in a handsomely, colourfully staged village of Munchkinland, and ‘One Short Day’, the song that soundtracks Elphaba and Glinda’s euphoric first experience of the Emerald City. From the glittering costumes to the way the cameras pan to different groups of dancing characters to tell the story, these big moments pull viewers in, while also nodding to the original stagecraft.

Then there’s the acting itself. When Grande was announced as Glinda, there was some push-back from the musical theatre world. But she is excellent and embodies the spirit of goodie-two-shoes, popular, privileged, pushy people-pleaser Glinda – and she’s hilarious too. We all know Erivo can sing – there are few who can reduce Dionne Warwick to tears with their voice. But there’s a magical pause and intake of anticipation as she approaches two of the score’s most iconic moments in ‘The Wizard And I’ and ‘Defying Gravity’ – and nails them. As for when Erivo and Grande sing together… the pairing is perfection. The chorus of  'What Is This Feeling?’ has been looping in my head ever since.

Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey is excellent as cocksure Fiyero. The screen lights up as he waggles his eyebrows and breathes energy into (IMO) one of the musical’s weaker songs, ‘Dancing Through Life’. We can’t wait to hear him sing ‘As Long As You’re Mine’ with Erivo in part two. 

Elsewhere, Jeff Goldblum is characteristically quirky as the shifty Wizard, recent Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh nails both faces of Madame Morrible, while musical star Ethan Slater’s Boq and first-time film actor Marissa Bode’s Nessarose bring heart to the film and set things up nicely for next year’s finale. Anyone scarred by the musical monstrosity that was Cats will be pleased to know that the animals – who are so central to Wicked’s plot – are believably rendered. Key to this is Peter Dinklage’s excellent, sympathetic Dr Dillamond, a goat professor whose treatment at the university of Shiz spurs Elphaba into action in the Emerald City.

A handful of grumpy critics have described the film as bloated. Sure, it’s got a runtime of 160 minutes, but it flashes by. Our only gripe came just as the curtain was about to come down. Some premature audience screaming and whooping drowned out the famous closing notes of ‘Defying Gravity’. But, as the credits rolled, we couldn’t help but join in the applause. Adaptations are never easy, but this one defies the odds to take Elphaba and Glinda’s relationship to new heights. Even better, it’s only 364 days until part two – and Eviro’s ‘No Good Deed’ – drops…

Wicked is in cinemas now.

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