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WICKED: PART I
Few modern-day musicals have held fans in almost unhinged fandom as Wicked, the retelling of the L. Frank Baum series with the Wicked Witch of the West as our protagonist. I cannot explain why Wicked is adored by so many people, but it is. After a long gestation period, we have Wicked: Part I, the first of a two-part adaptation of the mega-hit Broadway show. I think Wicked fans (Wickies?) will love delving into this world. Those of us not familiar or enamored of what came before Dorothy fell from Kansas will find things to like but may still be unsure why there is such fervor.
Let the joyous news be spread: the Wicked Witch of the West is dead. The Munchkins are thrilled and celebrate that No One Mourns the Wicked. Into the celebration floats Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (Ariana Grande, billed as Ariana Grande-Butera). She expresses joy that the Munchkins are free, but when one asks her if it is true that Glinda and the Wicked Witch were once friends, Glinda then begins recounting the origin story.
The Wicked Witch of the West was Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), the product of an adulterous liaison between the Munchkins' Governor's wife and a mystery man. Whoever her birth father was, it caused her to have green skin, horrifying all. Elphaba manages great powers when angered but is protective of her younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode). Nessa, the apple of her father's eye in part because she is not green, is now off to Shiz University. Ostensibly there just to see that Nessa settles in, the ridicule that Elphaba receives by the hoity-toity Shiz students unleashes a great display of power.
This intrigues Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), a powerful sorceress who runs Shiz. It also intrigues Galinda Upland (Grande), the Elle Woods of Shiz and unofficial Queen Bee. Morrible insists that Elphaba stay on and receive personal training. Galinda, desperate to get on Morrible's good side, very reluctantly agrees to share her formerly private suite with Elphaba. Things grow more complicated with the arrival of Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), the luscious Winkie prince that sends everyone's hearts and loins aflutter. I mean everyone: male, female, maybe even the animal professors. Elphaba herself is mixed on Fiyero, but Galinda is determined to use her feminine wiles to land the dream man.
Eventually, Galinda and Elphaba form a bond, with the former determined to help the latter become Popular. Elphaba is distressed about the Ozian animals losing their rights and literal voice but then is thrilled when she receives a request for an audience with the Wizard of Oz himself. It's off to the Emerald City for Elphaba, who brings her BFF, now self-christened Glinda, along. Thrilled at the sights of the Emerald City, Elphaba hopes that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) will save the Ozian animals. However, to her horror, the Wizard and Morrible are the ones stripping the animals of their rights and voices. They want Elphaba to use her extraordinary powers to help them in their planned destruction of the animals. She, however, will not join in this plan. Instead, she will defy them and be Defying Gravity to fight the Wizard and Morrible. She has an accidental army of flying monkeys to use and asks Glinda to join her. Glinda, albeit reluctantly, opts not to join her bestie, and with that, Elphaba flies out of the Emerald City on her broom.
I perhaps should not have been surprised to see people wearing Wicked t-shirts and other paraphernalia at the Wicked screening that I went to. I was, however, surprised to find many children attending. I figure that the adults who took them were taken in by how Wicked is somewhat of a Wizard of Oz prequel. I do not know what they thought of slutty Munchkin First Ladies, talking animals being hauled out of classrooms and a pretty young thing arousing everyone's desires in a big musical number.
As someone generally unfamiliar with either the Broadway musical or the Gregory Maguire novel on which the musical was based on, I can only speculate on how close or far the film veered from the source material. My sense is that Wicked may be perhaps too slavishly loyal to the original show, for it seems that almost nothing was cut. Whether that is a good thing or not I leave to individual audience members. I can say that Wicked feels long and a little bloated.
This is especially true for me when Elphaba and Glinda (who changed her name in honor of her goat professor's accidental mispronouncing) arrive at the Emerald City. Once they meet the Wizard and are offered the chance to participate in the machinations, things feel very rushed. It is strange given that it took an hour for Prince Fiyero to pop up. I could not shake the idea that Wicked was stretched out. I don't think it was, as I understand that Part I covers the first act of the two-act musical. Curiously, the entire Broadway musical runs two hours and forty-five minutes including a 15-minute intermission. Wicked Part I runs approximately that long. I am thoroughly puzzled why Wicked is that long.
I suppose Part I will set up Part II, meaning that Nessa's romance with Boq (Ethan Slater), a Munchkin student at Shiz, will be more explored. However, as they were not a major point in Wicked Part I, I did forget about them for long stretches. I do not know if screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox or director John M. Chu considered cutting some numbers or trimming story elements (for example, cutting down the arrivals at Shiz University). It might have helped.
It isn't as though Wicked does not have some major positives. The film does an excellent job in capturing this Ozian universe. The production design and costuming are top notch, creating this fantastical world in believable ways.
The performances were on the whole quite strong. Erivo, who showed she could handle dramatic work in her Oscar-nominated turn in Harriet, showcases her powerful vocal range as Elphaba. Her renditions of the Wicked songbook, culminating in a bravura rendition of Defying Gravity, dominate the screen. When she is not singing, Erivo makes Elphaba someone with a permanent chip on her shoulder. I figure that is how the character is, so I cannot complain too much. I do think that it is late when we get any sense that she might have shifted to a more positive figure had circumstances come that way. It is a good performance overall.
As a side note, I confess after a while on giving up trying to get Elphaba's name right and started calling her "Alfalfa". I also thought Wicked made her look like the Ozian version of Carrie to where I was expecting her to go on a murderous rampage at the Oz Dust Ballroom.
I do express some perplexion on why Ariana Grande is being tapped to win Best Supporting Actress. Again, I figure that her Galinda was played as the character was meant to be. She was appropriately fluttery, vapid, vain and cartoonishly exaggerated. She came across as a slightly more self-centered version of Elle Woods, complete with the obsession for pink. She handled the singing well, though I figure that original Galinda Kristin Chenoweth or a younger Sarah Brightman would have done better. Again, it was fine, but nothing that overwhelmed me.
I am more perplexed by why Michelle Yeoh was cast. She is a legend, but she did not sing The Wizard and I so much as she talked the lyrics to a melody. Goldblum was on screen too briefly in my view, but he did well as the sham Wizard. Bailey's Fiyero did fine as the uber-hunky Winkie prince who may be causing a divide between Elphaba and Glinda. The scope of Wicked gave Slater and Bode very little to do.
I figure Wicked fans will enjoy the cameos by Chenoweth and the original Elphaba, Idina Menzel, during the One Short Day number. You even get to see them interact with their counterparts. I think, however, that One Short Day captures a bit of why I am not as enthusiastic about Wicked as others are. Everything felt overproduced. The dance number felt too big, too choreographed, slightly forced in its attempt at grandness. There is a lot of underscoring in the film that I found distracting.
As someone not attached to Wicked as this life-altering experience, I cannot say that I was moved to tears or overwhelmed by some almost mystical spirit while watching the film. It was fine. It was respectable. It was long. I found Wicked Part I to be neither tragically beautiful nor beautifully tragic.
The Wizard of Oz Retrospective: The Conclusions
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