Wicked: Part I
NOTE: I’m assuming a fairly intermediate level of familiarity with the world of Oz, both original and Wicked. If the names and vocabulary are confusing, Google is your friend.
You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be spoilers, for this movie as well as the next.
Oh, sweet Oz. Whatever else I may think of this movie, this much is undeniable: it jump-started my somewhat forgotten love for the musical, and I’ve been listening to little else for the last few weeks. My internal soundtrack is 100% Wicked, which is annoying when I’m trying to sleep. I am now officially that freak who sings “How I hate to go and leave you lonely” when I’m leaving the cat in the apartment for longer than an hour. (Was I ever not that person?)
Opening on the heels of the most iconic moment in Ozian history, our story begins with a nationwide announcement by Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande-Butera), who officially confirms the wild rumors surrounding the apparent death of the Wicked Witch of the West (Cynthia Erivo). Following the broadcast, Glinda pays a visit to Munchkinland, where she joins the Munchkins in celebrating the downfall of the Witch (“No One Mourns the Wicked”) despite her own private grief. However, the Munchkins do have some questions, and she finds herself first explaining the Witch’s troubled childhood, then the unlikely friendship that blossomed between them in college.
Years earlier, Elphaba Thropp – the green-skinned, magically gifted daughter of Munchkin Governor Thropp (Andy Nyman) – accompanies her father to Shiz University, where they intend to drop off her younger sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode; “Dear Old Shiz”). As a parting gift, Governor Thropp gives Nessarose a pair of silver shoes that belonged to her mother. Though Elphaba herself is not expected to enroll, she is offered private tutelage by Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), the Dean of Sorcery Studies, after a spontaneous display of magic. This is an immediate thorn in the side of fellow freshman Galinda Upland, who desperately wishes to study magic but lacks Elphaba’s talent. Nevertheless, Elphaba eagerly accepts Madame Morrible’s offer in the hopes of meeting the Wizard of Oz, who she believes will be able to change her to a more socially acceptable color (“The Wizard and I”), though her excitement is slightly dampened when she and Galinda accidentally become roommates in a meet-cute that can best be described as loathing at first sight. Already unpopular, Elphaba becomes further alienated from her classmates when the entire student body sides with Galinda (“What Is This Feeling?”).
With no friends to speak of, Elphaba instead grows close to Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage), a Goat who teaches history. Through him, she learns that Animals around Oz have been losing their rights at an alarming rate, along with the ability to speak, but assures him that the Wizard will be able to help (“Something Bad”). Despite her good intentions, distraction arrives almost immediately in the form of Fiyero Tigelaar (Jonathan Bailey), a Winkie prince who has already been kicked out of several other schools and is now transferring to Shiz. Though Elphaba is the first Shiz student he meets, Fiyero is quickly attracted to Galinda, and vice versa, and they agree to a first date at the Ozdust Ballroom (“Dancing Through Life”). After disposing of unwanted suitor Boq Woodsman (Ethan Slater), whom she carelessly pairs with Nessarose, Galinda invites Elphaba to join the rest of their class at the Ozdust, slyly gifting her a comically ugly witch’s hat as a prank. There’s just one problem: Nessarose was already infatuated with Boq, and her desire to reciprocate Galinda’s “kindness” leads Elphaba to request that Galinda be admitted to Madame Morrible’s sorcery seminar. Guilt-stricken, Galinda dances with Elphaba at the Ozdust, and they become friends (“Popular”).
Shortly after the Ozdust, school takes a darker turn when Dr. Dillamond is violently arrested in front of Elphaba’s history class and replaced with a human professor who accompanies his lecture with a terrified lion cub in a cage. Enraged at the idea that the cub will be denied the power of speech, Elphaba puts the entire class to sleep, with the exception of Fiyero, who helps her remove the cub from the school. While he takes the cub to safety, Elphaba reflects on her growing attraction to him, which she believes is unrequited (“I’m Not That Girl”); Fiyero, however, reciprocates her interest, and he begins to grow away from Galinda, who notices the change in him but remains unaware of its cause. After abruptly changing her name to Glinda – ostensibly to honor the arrested Dr. Dillamond, really to try to recapture Fiyero’s attention – a worried Galinda accompanies Elphaba to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard of Oz (“One Short Day”).
After an intimidating introductory display, the girls learn that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is in fact a seemingly well-meaning middle-aged man with an interest in model sets (“A Sentimental Man”). Touched by the Wizard’s creation of a green-painted Elphaba action figure, Elphaba decides against her original request and instead asks the Wizard to help the Animals, to which he seems to agree. Their idyllic conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Madame Morrible, the Wizard’s right-hand woman, who instructs Elphaba to try to read from the Grimmerie spellbook as a test of her power. Seeing the Grimmerie respond to Elphaba’s mere presence, the Wizard manipulates her into forcing his monkey guards to sprout wings. The process turns out to be intensely painful for the monkeys, but Morrible and the Wizard delight in their newly flightworthy spies, causing Elphaba to realize that they have been deliberately oppressing the Animals of Oz.
Horrified at their cruelty, Elphaba refuses their offer of status and power, and is pursued by the enraged monkeys. At the top of one of the castle turrets, she and Glinda share an emotional goodbye, acknowledging that they are choosing different paths but genuinely wishing each other well, shortly before Elphaba breaks free of the castle on an enchanted broom and flees to the west (“Defying Gravity”). While Glinda joins Morrible and the Wizard, Fiyero leaves Shiz on horseback; in Munchkinland, Nessarose sees her father suffer a heart attack, and presumably die, during a radio broadcast in which Morrible denounces Elphaba as a wicked witch.
This cannot be overstated: this was a smash hit of a movie that ticked all the boxes, including the ones I didn’t know were there. No movie has ever made me cry during the INTRO, but Ariana’s first unearthly notes were more than enough to send me over the edge. I knew after five seconds that this movie was going to be my new personality. While I can’t say I’m a tremendous fan of the book, this movie convinced me to buy a special hardcover edition. It was that good. I need a DVD of this ASAP, because I need to be able to sing and scream and clap like a lunatic after every song. I cried when Ariana began to sing. I just barely managed not to shriek when Idina and Kristin appeared onscreen – I’d completely forgotten they had a cameo, and they were a delightful surprise. I sobbed during “Defying Gravity.” I cannot get over the phenomenon that is Cynthia and Ariana. I swear there are moments the pair of them forget that they’re human with some of the notes they hit while singing live holy shit, but, well, mine is not to understand. I am merely here to appreciate the splendor of their voices, both together and apart.
I will admit that I had some concerns, mostly because I know very little about Ariana (except that she has a magnificent voice), but I’m used to seeing her with dark hair and I was getting serious uncanny valley from her blond wig. Maybe this is a me problem – she looks perfectly fine in it. The world of Wicked is so rich and so beautifully realized that everything fits and absolutely no one looks out of place, not even Ariana’s very surprising hair. But I was so wrong to doubt, because her acting is so wonderfully natural; her comedic timing is so impeccable; her grief in the beginning, and then again at the end, is so gutwrenching. It’s one thing to look sad over the death of a friend, but Ariana’s Glinda is just so quietly heartbroken that it seems like she’s wondering if her death will be celebrated too, in the end. “No One Mourns the Wicked” feels like Glinda’s song more than Elphaba’s, just by virtue of her decision to remain complicit with a terrible system in which Animals are forced to bear the brunt of the people’s discontent. She has the ability to take something unpopular and make it popular, as we see during her dance with Elphaba at the Ozdust Ball, but she chooses not to – because of fear of ostracization, because of her desire to maintain her own privilege, because she doesn’t want her family to suffer, because of probably a dozen such interrelated reasons – and that opening feels so much like a sort of “What have I done?” moment that I don’t hate her for it.
As for Cynthia, her performance is flawless. She’d better win a goddamn award for this movie, because her acting, her singing, even just the way she looks with green skin, all of it is chef’s kiss perfection. Somebody on Threads was saying that she could sing the alphabet and they would still sob, and I completely agree. I can’t get enough of that one shot in “Defying Gravity” where she’s wearing the cloak for the first time and silhouetted against the window, I swear that woman is magic. In her final scene with Glinda, she is so raw and vulnerable and so utterly convincing that I would’ve hopped on that broom in an eyeblink, no thoughts, just vibes. I really really really want to see what she does with “No Good Deed” in the second movie. She just is Elphaba, in the way that Ariana is Glinda. Their chemistry is so, so perfect. More than anything, they are two lonely girls who manage to become each other’s first real friend against staggering odds. They may come from different backgrounds and have different ideas about what is right, but in the end they see each other exactly as they are and they still love each other so much, and it’s just so incredibly heartbreaking. We don’t deserve them, but we absolutely needed them.
Regarding the rest of the movie: holy fuck I want those amazing rotating bookcase clocks in “Dancing Through Life,” THEY ARE INCREDIBLE. The choreography is spectacular and perfectly executed. I was annoyed when I first learned that Wicked would be split into two movies, but now I wholeheartedly agree, because I can’t imagine cutting so much as a second from this movie. I also cannot stress enough how grateful I am that Hollywood seems to be getting the “PLEASE CAST PEOPLE WHO CAN ACTUALLY SING” memo. Maybe it’s just that it was Wicked and they knew they couldn’t fuck it up because they’d have millions of fans out for their blood, but whatever the reason, I’m glad of it. I don’t even mind Jeff’s singing, I mean, it’s not a big singing role and at least he doesn’t sound like he has a mouthful of cotton balls. Bowen Yang was another pleasant surprise: though his role isn’t huge, I almost died when he said “I don’t see color.” Michelle Yeoh, of course, is divine as the two-faced Madame Morrible, and I hope whoever clothed all these people gets a huge raise, because everyone looks amazing in this movie.
Moving forward, I am curious to see how the next movie handles Nessa’s development as she becomes the Wicked Witch of the East. Nessa has never been my favorite character, and the stage musical did not change my mind, but I somehow found her more sympathetic in the movie. This may be the effect of age, or it may be that I haven’t seen the musical recently enough to remember Nessa’s character particularly well, or it may be that Marissa Bode’s Nessa has such a fresh-faced innocence to her. And I’m glad of that, because, while she later evolves into a wholly selfish character, I can see a little better where she’s coming from. Leaving aside the fact of what she becomes (and leaving aside the very obvious fact that she is more concerned about her own reputation and her relationship with Boq than she is about her own sister), she’s in a tough spot. She has an insanely overprotective father who would absolutely have brought the helicopter along if he had one, and the whole world insists on seeing her as weak and helpless, and she was raised to believe that magic is a shameful, embarrassing thing but she also has this magical sister who keeps accidentally drawing negative attention to the entire family, and boy, that’s gotta be infuriating. Boq’s obsession with Glinda, and then her father’s heart attack and her elevation to Governor of Munchkinland, have to be the final straw in a continuous cycle of isolation, frustration, and shame. I feel for this Nessa. I know she’s going to do bad things and then get crushed by a house, but I feel for her all the same.
Overall, this is a movie I can happily watch over and over and over again on an infinite loop until I get sick of it (or until the second movie comes out, whichever comes first). It is the best musical film I’ve ever seen, ever. Not a hair is out of place; the costumes and the set design and the music and the choreography and the visual effects and the storytelling and the acting are all absolutely sublime, to the point that I could watch the movie a dozen times and probably still find no fault with it. It really is such a pleasure to watch, because I can see that it was made by people who love this musical with their whole soul, who poured their hearts into every detail and every moment, no matter how minute. As an adaptation of the original musical, it is unerringly faithful; but it also adds some sneaky new material, such as Fiyero’s first scene, in which he is relentlessly roasted by his Horse. Didn’t know I needed it, would absolutely miss it if it was gone. That Horse better be in the next movie.
TL;DR: This movie is wonderful. I called it wonderful, and it said, “Wonderful, if you insist.”
