Wicked is in theaters and I have too many thoughts.
Full disclosure: I have been an Oz fan since I was four and first listened to an audio version of it from the seventies. Then I saw the 1939 movie on TV at six. I read all the original Oz books (Ozma of Oz is still my favorite). I read everything I could find about the 1939 movie and saw as many of the other film versions as possible.
When Gregory Maguire published Wicked, I felt ambivalent. While plenty of authors have written Oz books since Baum’s death in 1919, reading about one of Oz’s most evil characters wasn’t exactly appealing. That it was made into a Broadway show wasn’t surprising but it still didn’t grab me.
Well, not until the show’s fifteenth anniversary rolled around and I saw clips from the TV special on Twitter/X. Then I was hooked, at least on the music, especially “Popular” and “Defying Gravity.” Not to be morbid or anything, but I want the latter song played at my funeral. Among others, of course, but I digress.
So after all of that, how was it seeing the first act of Wicked on the big screen?
Overwhelming. Fun. Touching. Slightly disconcerting. Still ambivalent, but it’s an enthusiastic ambivalence.
As a musical, Wicked feels as if Hollywood has found its groove again. For a long time, a few exceptions aside, it seemed as if the film industry had forgotten how to make musicals, and more and more often we’re seeing what can be done with the new technologies while paying tribute to what has been. In Wicked, the camera has movement, the dances are framed properly, and there’s a real sense of the songs being allowed to breathe. The movie is colorful and sparkly like a candy box, and it looks very Ozian. It also works in a pretty special duo of cameos, and the key phrase there seems to be “Still got it.”
The acting and singing are top-notch, and I was surprised at how much I liked Ariana Grande as Glinda. She’s not licking any donuts and shows quite a bit of poise in the role, plus she’s ably matched by Cynthia Erivo. Naturally, both of them have mad skills as singers.
That said, I still think Kristen Chenoweth’s performance had a lot more interest to it, because she adds little squeaks and twangs to her singing that really up the cuteness factor, whereas Grande tends to play it straight. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but never underestimate the power of extra touches. Grande’s performance sometimes rings closer to Regina George than Glinda Upland, especially when she tosses her hair. She’s even got two yes-people, Pfannee and Shenshen.
And while Cynthia Erivo puts her own spin on Elfaba, Idina Menzel casts a mighty big shadow, which means every performance following her original turn hearkens back to Menzel in some way. Erivo is no exception.
Now, I did have a big reservation going in, and after seeing Wicked it’s only gotten bigger: The retconning. If these characters were countries during World War Two, the Wizard would be Nazi Germany, Elfaba would be occupied Europe, and Glinda would be Vichy. The Wicked Witch of the West is not really wicked anymore; she’s a misunderstood freedom fighter.
It also ruins why there had to be so much secrecy around the Wizard. The whole point of “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” was that Oz didn’t want anyone to know he was a big fat fake. Coming into Oz via balloon was spectacular, but the Wizard knew he would need more hocus pocus than that, and since he didn’t have real magical powers he had to get by on an ingenious snow job.
In Baum’s original novel, the Wizard appeared to Dorothy and Company not just as a giant head, but in Baum’s original novel he’s a beautiful woman, a hideous creature, and a disembodied voice. No one could see him as he was, although his staff could talk to him from behind a screen.
The Wizard’s motive wasn’t plain and simple deception, either. The novel also says that the Wizard knew that if the four witches of Oz knew he wasn’t really a wizard, it would not only put him in danger but the people who believed in him.
Yeah. Those four witches were already established when the Wizard floated in, and he knew how evil two of them were, hence the trickery. That’s why Oz wanted Dorothy to off the Wicked Witch of the West.
In Wicked, Glinda and Elphaba not only peek behind the curtain, but (spoiler alert) figure out that Oz is a humbug. And that’s all before Dorothy shows up. Ergo, it defeats the purpose of The Wizard of Oz. Good and evil are no longer clearly defined and motives are now questionable if not completely pointless. In some ways it feels deflating.
Then again, Baum was not above retconning his own work, as he agreed to his story being turned inside out for the 1902 stage play and his later foray into filmmaking takes Oz in some new directions (Baum’s 1910 version of Oz, for example, has Dorothy, Toto, Scarecrow, a mule named Hank, and a cow named Imogene flying to Oz on a haystack).
Did I like Wicked? Yep. I liked it a lot. While it’s hard to get past the retconning, muddy morality, and messy politics, it’s still Oz, albeit an alternate universe Oz. There’s plenty more I could say, but that will have to wait for Part Two next year.
Wicked is currently in theaters. Rated PG.
My grade: A-
Principal Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Peter Dinklage, Andy Nyman, Courtney Mae-Briggs, Bowen Yang, Bronwyn James, Aaron Teoh Guan Ti, Sean Pendergast, Keala Settle, Sharon D. Clarke, Jenna Boyd, Colin Michael Carmichael.
Directed by John M. Chu.
Written by Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox and Gregory Maguire (novel).