I didn’t expect to like Wicked. I’m not a musicals person because I have an allergic reaction to people breaking into song in the middle of a scene. Very few people have made musicals I find even watchable, much less tolerable. To find musicals I love is extremely rare. They do exist. I cut my teeth on Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals. Singing in the Rain is great, of course. West Side Story is one of the all-time greats. Cabaret is fantastic. Chicago is grand. But there is a much longer list of musicals that made me want to flee the theater. Wicked lands somewhere in between the two. The first half of Part One I’d put in the category of “don’t work.” But the second half is so good that it won me over and made me love the movie.
Why? Cynthia Erivo. It wasn’t just her transforming into a witch — and trust me, we witches need to stick together — but it was how she came into her own superpower that was thrilling to watch. It doesn’t hurt that the song, Defying Gravity, is the movie’s showstopper. My daughter said “I’ll wait two hours to hear that song.” But it’s Erivo’s witch, too. You end up rooting for her dark magic to prevail and vanquish the establishment — not unlike a certain political movement just did to ours.
Full disclosure: I have never seen the entire play, so I don’t know what happens in Part Two, and please don’t tell me. I’d rather be surprised. But Part One gave me more than enough to love, and now I see Wicked as easily one of the best films of the year and worthy of all of the hype and praise it has received, and yes, Jon Chu deserves a Best Director nomination. That’s an easy call. He should be one of the DGA-Five, and I hope he is.
Before I get into what I didn’t like about the first half, let me just say what I loved about the second half. Michelle Yeoh was born to be a villain in this movie. I did not buy her as the nice headmaster. Jeff Goldblum instantly made the movie better because he’s an experienced actor and is always good. The two of them together as evil establishment overlords was a surprising twist and not something seen in Hollywood movies of late. Maybe that’s because it was written oh so long ago, 1995, before Hollywood aligned itself with the establishment. Back then, it was cool to be anti-establishment.
I was glad to see that fascism was laid at the feet of that establishment — indeed, fascism is not fascism without institutional support. Remember, fascism can be boiled down to two main ideas.
Conform or else.
All power to the state against the individual.
In the case of Wicked, it’s all power to Oz against talking animals, aka, the underclass. I suppose some could twist this story into yet another anti-Trump screed by comparing animals to migrants, but I think that’s a stretch and borderline insulting — though I do not think it is an insult to be compared to an animal, some might. Elphaba, as was already pointed out by our pal Chris Gore at Film Threat, is a challenge to the establishment because she will not conform, will not go along with what they demand of her, and finally, uses her own power to challenge theirs.
Believe it or not, Cynthia Erivo is as powerful, if not more powerful, a singer than Idina Menzel and nails it in the last part of the film. I did not see what others have complained about. To me, the cinematography, the production design, and the costumes all looked clear and bright.
So, what problems did I have with the movie? When a film sticks its landing like Wicked does, the problems become inconsequential, but I still think it’s a point worth making. As good as Wicked is, I think it could have been even better if what holds true in the second half also held true in the first half.
The problem I had with the beginning was that the new ideology of Hollywood and the new Left is that “everybody gets a certificate.” All are welcome, but some are more welcome than others. Those who aren’t welcome are people who aren’t “woke.” They must be down with all of the ideology or else they are full of “hate.” The outsiders are the traditionalists, those who favor merit or are Christians or Republicans. Oddly enough, that’s where we’ve landed.
So why would they have a problem with someone who has green skin when they are accepting of all skin colors, gender identities, etc? It made no sense, but it also robbed the film of tension. To see Elphaba as a real outsider — and no, a beautiful Cynthia Erivo looking like she walked off the runway does not count — transform into a powerful witch is the stuff great stories are made on.
Take Creepy Carrie, who starts the movie as a wallflower and then delivers that last great scene as she says to the entire high school, “f*ck around and find out.”
Why would a witch’s hat be something they would laugh at her and mock her about when she’s clearly the coolest kid in that whole school? If anything, Galinda is the more awkward one. In its own way, Wicked is like Barbie where the Woketastic expressions are confined to Barbie World and to Shizz Academy. One of the best things about stories like this is watching the bullied and rejected outsider transform.
I never felt that Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba was anything other than a super cool, empowered person, which meant the first half of it lacked tension and conflict. But again, the second half is so good it makes up for it. This movie, probably like the play, gets better as it gets darker. That was also true of The Wizard of Oz – those flying monkeys were scary. Movies, even those aimed at kids, did not pull punches. They made stories that were emotionally hard — all of the Disney movies were. My generation grew up like that, which is why we’re so tough and resilient.
I don’t know where Wicked goes to turn the great Elphaba into the Margaret Hamilton version if it ever gets there. But I do know that the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz was representative of the establishment then, too, because she was really Mrs. Gulch, someone who is angry when people break the rules and is cruel enough to take away Toto.
No kid who watched The Wizard of Oz back then or now doesn’t root for Toto to escape and for Dorothy to save him from destruction. So it’s interesting that Elphaba becomes a savior to animals. I guess we’ll have to wait for Part Two to see where the story goes.
The film The Wizard of Oz is about exposing corruption and a mass delusion where all of Oz is under the impression that the Wizard is an all-powerful being when in fact, he’s just an old man behind the curtain. The film contained so many lessons for all of us, including skepticism in the face of powerful institutions. It also told us there is no place like home and that what you need most in life are three things: a heart, a brain, the nerve.
The Wizard of Oz was so good that it continues to resonate even now. I’m not sure what Wicked’s message will ultimately be, though I hope it gives us something more than “female empowerment” and continues its path toward a more universal message. Either way, Wicked is one of those films where everything goes right, even if it doesn’t exactly follow the yellow brick road to get there.
