Wicked, or Wicked Part 1 as it should properly be called, is an impressive piece of musical movie making – Ariana Grande is a revelation – but I remain unconvinced it needs to be two parts
“I wasn’t born for the rose and the pearl”
It’s been more than 20 years since Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical Wicked premiered on Broadway so it is a little surprise that it has taken this long for a film version to emerge but here we are. Jon M Chu’s adaptation has split the story in two, Part 2 to arrive in November 2025, and with some astonishing production design from Nathan Crowley, is a visual treat. Based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Holzman and Dana Fox’s screenplay gives us an origin story for Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West-to be and Galinda, destined to become Glinda the Good, wildly different young women learning about magic, friendship and the power of a good song.
For all its considerable running time, Chu’s film rarely drags, a sprightliness and paciness meaning you barely notice the time passing. That said, given the extension to a size bigger than the first act of the musical alone, you do wonder how much has been added that was truly essential. For all that this world of Oz is fleshed out more fully and the main story beats given more time to breathe as we cover bullying, racism, speciesism and rising authoritarianism alongside some interpretative dance, highly uneconomical train travel and some ferociously good costume design (Paul Tazewell), there’s no new songs, none of the supporting players get any more substantive airtime (which is a real shame given their quality), there’s nothing that stands up as a bona fide justification here if we’re honest.
Of those supporting players, Ethan Slater’s Boq and Marissa Bode’s Nessarose are so sweetly done, the wheelchair choreography (Christopher Scott) for their dance beautifully executed, Andy Nyman’s Governor Thropp and Keala Settle’s Miss Coddle register strongly, Bowen Yang and Bronwym James as Galinda’s besties Pfannee and ShenShen bring comedy if not originality. Michelle Yeoh’s Madame Morrible brings in hauteur what she might lack in vocal prowess and Jeff Goldblum is. well, Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard, affability personified even when being less than wizard-like. And it’s always a pleasure to hear Sharon D Clarke’s voice and she’s heard early on as midwife Dulcibear, one of several animal characters.
Ariana Grande (credited as Ariana Grande-Butera) is a genuine revelation as Glinda, gossamer-light at first but absolutely nailing every comic beat with great physicality and timing. She also layers in such complex emotion as she discovers a world beyond the privilege in pink, her rendition of ‘Popular’ completely joyous, that it is the lynchpin performance of the film. If they seriously campaign for her in Supporting Actress in award season, the world needs to be looked at. Cynthia Erivo brings a solemnity and spikiness to Elphaba which also impresses at times but doesn’t quite bring the tonal variety that the character needs, appeal mixed in with the angularity – there’s little to suggest what would truly engage Jonathan Bailey’s fearsomely good Fiyero in all his empty-headed charm.
Musically there’s inconsistency in the interpretations of her songs too. Chu helps her to shine in a sparky ‘The Wizard and I’ but ‘I’m Not That Girl’ is reduced to a drab and dour walk in the woods with a strangely subdued vocal. And for the huge gift that is Act 1 closer, and thus the film’s finale here, ‘Defying Gravity’, its screen adaptation is fractured even further than it already is with its text breaks, so much of the song’s cumulative power lost due to these extended interventions. I hate the additional, completely unnecessary. riff added onto the end (something pointed up by a delicious Easter egg moment earlier on) and having come up with an iconic, musical-respecting image on which to end, the sequence drags on even further for little discernible reason. For me, it’s a real fudge of an ending.
Overall though, Wicked: Part 1 is good, often great fun, as it harks back to a classic era of movie musicals and offers a piece of family-friendly festive escapism that should also please most musical theatre fans.
