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What a piece of work is Wicked. Seriously: take that as a deafened compliment. A tale of misfit empowerment set to full-throated show tunes, the sheer industrial feelgood may impress even those outside the core demographic of musical theatre fans. Frankly, you might as well enjoy it. To watch this revisionist riff on The Wizard of Oz is to stand directly under the landing path of a melodious passenger jet, then be dipped headfirst in glue and glitter. At a certain point, you can only give in to the experience.
As per the stage show, the gist is a sympathetic origin story of Elphaba Thropp, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West, now played by Cynthia Erivo. Of course it is. A large chunk of the audience will be here after a visit — or many visits — to the production in situ on Broadway since 2003. (And/or London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre since 2006, or multiple other stagings worldwide.)
The treatment is witty, zesty and respectful. Yet director Jon M Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) also makes the movie a movie. So it is that, for instance, we open to a blockbuster aerial shot of flying blue monkeys that feels like nothing so much as James Cameron’s The Wizard of Oz, albeit starting at the end, with the hated spell-caster newly dead. Ding dong.
But this is just a prologue to frame the giant flashback tale of Elphaba: born green, telekinetically gifted and misunderstood. Erivo is very good. Her performance has punch beyond the essential task of belting out the songs. Still, let’s not belittle that. Every one is big enough that even the gentlest number can end in literal fireworks. The star has the lungs and dexterity to cope.
Yet scenes are stolen by colleague Ariana Grande as hyper-popular Good-Witch-in-waiting, Glinda. That the four-octave pop star crushes the tunes is no particular shock. The surprise is her knack for cracked comedy, with the deadpan air of a living mannequin. (“A stranger,” she earnestly tells a smitten new acquaintance, “is just a person I haven’t met yet.”)
Other stars include Michelle Yeoh with a Mr Whippy hair-do and Jeff Goldblum slinking into the role of the Wizard from well inside his comfort zone. Beyond the winged monkeys, talking animals advance the plot. For Universal, the studio behind the film, you’d think this might cause panic. Their last movie of a musical theatre institution was the hapless Cats.
Chu, however, is a pro, safely handling a film whose pitch beyond Broadway militants winks instead to that pink phenomenon, Barbie. (Even better for the bean counters: this is just the first part of a two-film release.) And yet while Barbie merely flirted with life as a musical, Wicked is one to its bones. The most tender human emotions are essayed through displays of hardcore physical discipline. The artificiality of the stage isn’t airbrushed, but scaled-up into a heady slickness, massed dancers tracked by whirling cameras.
Of course a camera can also work in close-up — picking out a single pendulous tear or Grande’s wide-eyed zingers. The movie can almost be subtle amid the dog-bothering high notes and booming message to respect the outsider. (I repeat: almost.) Until, eventually, it puts you back down where it found you — leaving only a ringing in the ears, and the chance for a bathroom break before the sequel.
★★★★☆
In UK and US cinemas from November 22