Having already tackled Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, now Jon M Chu gets to bring another of the 21st Century’s most beloved and influential stage musicals to the big screen with the first half of his grandly epic adaptation of Wicked – surely, once he completes this duology, he’ll be the man to marshal a cinematic Hamilton. Just as he did with In the Heights, Chu here has crafted a version that is sure to overjoy the legions of die-hard fans, though is unlikely to win over any sceptics with its sometimes ropey visuals and epic length. For me (never seen the play) it was somewhere in the middle, its rough pacing carried by the moments of real, undeniable power earned whenever Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are allowed to just sing their hearts out.
Covering roughly the first half of the play (and running at the length of the *entire* original musical, which should explain the baggy pace), Wicked serves as the origin story for The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West. Named Elphaba (Erivo), she’s born green to the horror of her parents, leading to a miserable childhood before her natural magical abilities land her a place at the prestigious Shiz University, rooming with the rich, spoiled Galinda (Grande), who will eventually become Glinda the good witch.
It’s this relationship that is the heart of Wicked, from hatred to best friendship to the tragic beginnings of a rivalry and, though there are some pretty naff story beats peppered throughout, Chu and writers Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox nail these dynamics. Of course, they are ably assisted by Erivo and Grande, who are so perfectly cast that, had you somehow never before heard of Wicked, you might reasonably assume had had these roles written with them specifically in mind.
Both are obviously dynamite singers and Erivo is as solid in the dramatic moments as you’d imagine, but it’s Grande who is the real revelation in her first real acting job since her Disney Channel days. As the resident mean girl of campus, she’s entertainingly vapid without overdoing it and her comic timing is great, earning plenty of real laughs. Jonathan Bailey is also fun as love interest Fiyero, a sensitive soul disguised as a shallow jock (with all three of these, though, you do have to force yourself to get over the weirdness of 30-somethings playing first year uni students), but not much of the supporting cast is otherwise memorable.
Obviously, characters like the Wizard himself (Jeff Goldblum doing his usual schtick) will have more to do in Part 2, but this is absolute the Erivo and Grande show, both in the story proper and the musical numbers. They’re all decent enough, but it’s notable just how much better ‘Popular’ (Grande’s main showcase) and ‘Defying Gravity’ (Erivo’s) are than every other song – none of the other 10 even come close to these showstoppers. ‘Defying Gravity’, of course, is particularly irresistible, a curtain-closer of such undeniable force from the writing and singing that even the patchy green screen visuals in the sequence don’t stop the film from closing out on a catch-your-breath high.
It is a shame that the worst of Chu’s visual sense hits at the best moment of everything else Wicked is doing, becoming as stylistically bland as the trailers made you fear. Most of the time, up on a good cinema screen, the washed-out colours of the promos are less of an issue, though some more saturation would have been nice (this was originally a technicoloured world after all) and some numbers are distractingly badly lit. The costumes here are good and the set design is *really* good, but this below the line work is sometimes let down by the actual filmmaking that is capturing it.
As can be attested by the tears and applause in the screening I was in, Wicked will be a hit of pure joy for any established superfans (of which there are clearly enough to make this a decent box office success). Given that I’ve often heard that most of the best stuff in the play is frontloaded, I’m not sure I’ll be back for another two-and-a-half hours for Part 2, but this is still a fun and heartfelt return to Oz.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 