Directed by Jon M. Chu
Screenplay by Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
Based on Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman & Wicked by Gregory Maguire
Produced by Marc Platt, David Stone
Starring
Cynthia Erivo
Ariana Grande
Jonathan Bailey
Ethan Slater
Bowen Yang
Peter Dinklage
Michelle Yeoh
Jeff Goldblum
Cinematography Alice Brooks
Edited by Myron Kerstein
Music by John Powell (score), Stephen Schwartz (score and songs)
Production companies Universal Pictures & Marc Platt Productions
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Running time 160 minutes
I came away from Wicked with mixed feelings. The settings and acting are superb, as promised, and despite a rather ponderous runtime of 160 minutes, there was a good mix of action and plot development. The special effects are flawless.
I like stories with moral ambiguity, but in the case of Wicked it just seemed to have moral confusion. It begins with Glinda informing the Munchkins that the Wicked Witch is dead, to mass jubilation. It’s a glimpse into the future of the vain, vacuous, vacant Galinda who is smirking at the death of her friend and taking credit for it. (The Witch died from a random housewarming party in Kansas). Glinda, not to put too fine a point on it, is a Karen.
So we go back to the beginning, and learn how Elphaba (Wicked Witch) came to be, and a rather bizarre accounting of how she came to be born with green skin. No, her father wasn’t a botanist, thanks for asking, now sit down. She takes her wheelbound sister and source of personal guilt to Shiz University in Oz to learn magic, only it turns out she has a few powers of her own and the headmistress of Oz, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh, who delights in morally complex characters) notices her and takes her in.
We gradually learn that Oz is a generally horrible place, dancing Munchkins or no. The Wizard is a weak god (Jeff Goldblum, last seen in KAOS as Zeus, and in danger of becoming typecast) and his rule is essentially fascistic. He is undertaking a pogrom against non-human characters in Oz, personified by Elphaba’s favorite professor, a talking goat named Dr. Dillamond, who treats her with compassion and – dare I say it – humanity before the Wizard’s SS corps whisk him away to the camps. (I didn’t miss the irony of Peter Dinklage, the voice of Dillamond, being in a movie involving Munchkins. I’ve no doubt Dinklage gave the role a great deal of consideration, not being obtuse. And I bet he laughed his ass off).
The treatment of Dillamond brings Elphaba to a moral crisis, and she has her first deep doubts about the Land of Oz.
So: the good witch is vain, stupid, shallow, an attention whore and mean-spirited. And the opening sequence suggests she stays that way. The evil witch is contemplative, woke, has strong moral values and is compassionate. And she ends up crushed by a Kansas farm house.
It does send a bit of a confusing message, doesn’t it?
Still, it’s well put together, excellent in all other ways, and it’s intrigued me because this is just the first half of a two-movie set. I want to see where they go with this.