Movie Review: Wicked: Part One (Part One)

[Trivia: Which are the two cities in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities?]

Having commented on the stage musical Wicked and now having just seen the film adaptation (Part One), I thought I’d offer my thoughts.

Wicked: Part One is a faithful adaptation of the musical, made by people who evidently love musicals. That might sound like a small thing, but it’s not. Last winter one friend of mine who loves musicals was talking about the then-recently released Mean Girls: The Musical: The Movie,¹ and how the film’s soundtrack was less than half the length of the soundtrack from the actual Broadway show, almost like it was embarrassed to be a musical.

Wicked: Part One is never embarrassed to be a musical. Every song from the original production is not only present, but filled out with protracted dance numbers. This does bring us directly to one elephant in the room: this single Broadway show was split into two separate feature films, each one full-length and longer than the original musical.

In light of this, Part One is executed pretty responsibly. No one is about to praise it for being “lean,” but the viewing experience doesn’t feel long, even if you get the impression that nothing was left on the cutting room floor. Director Jon M. Chu has said that the decision was driven by the magnitude of the production, which he felt would have to be “compromised” or “damaged” to fit inside a single movie, rather than dictated by studio suits for greed; based on these results, I believe him.

The only part to feel like a drag was, tragically, the climax; I imagine that the imperative to make the show-stopping “Defying Gravity” feel impactful drove the decision-making to pad out the finale’s buildup past any point of need or good sense. This ended an otherwise engaging movie on an underwhelming note.

Most choices were sound and faithful to the source material in content and mannerism. The color grading itself feels like a throwback to the era of the original musical, which opened on Broadway in 2003. The film has vibrance and fun costumes that befit a far-away land of magic; meanwhile, the opening and closing credits are done up in turn-of-the-century aesthetics, crisply invoking both the 1900 era of the book’s publication and the 1939 era of the Judy Garland movie. For all the darkness and hurtful adolescent dynamics contained in this movie, there’s also a joy and a pervasive sense that it’s good to be alive, that it’s better to exist than not to exist, that the artists were grateful for the chance to work on this project. Director Jon M. Chu and his creative team love cinema and love musical theater²—Chu has talked about seeing this stage musical before it even hit Broadway, nearly 20 years ago now, and falling in love with it then—and their creation embodies that.

The casting is good across the board; Jeff Goldblum slots in nicely as the Wizard,³ and Michelle Yeoh and Jonathan Bailey play their parts with aplomb. Ariana Grande acts wonderfully as the Good Witch, and Cynthia Erivo brings a tremendous amount of depth and variety to the lead, Elphaba.

And, thankfully, a lot of the adaptation of scenes to this medium took good advantage of what film is capable of: the antagonistic duet “Loathing” is interspliced throughout two characters’ lives across some period of time; the exuberant “Dancing through Life” includes a dance routine inside a truly Oz-ian clockwork-like library storage contraption; Dr. Dillamond is an actual goat, voiced by Peter Dinklage, and the monkeys’ magical transformation is witnessed in full CG glory.

But if many of the production’s bolder decisions were safe and good, the production’s faithfulness preserved the original’s flaws, amber-like, on full and painful display. Many of these issues go to the core of the story: the racism against animals that drives the plot, and the way Elphaba is framed by the narrative.

That second point might require some in-the-weeds explanation. Elphaba’s story as told by the musical numbers and emotional highlights is just noticeably off-kilter from the story that we otherwise watch. In “Defying Gravity”, Elphaba belts out that she’s “through accepting limits, cuz someone says they’re so / Some things I’ll never change, but till I try I’ll never know.” Except, she’s been subject to very little “limit” talk. She’s been socially outcast, for sure, but the existing power structure enrolled her into a university she hadn’t even applied to, carved out special exceptions for her, introduced her to every influential person we’re aware of, and has generally been very empowering of her. Sure, the animals have been given limits, but even these have been unsettlingly real—the animals actually are losing their powers of speech.⁴ The same goes for Elphaba singling out “Munchkins” for being “so small-minded” in “The Wizard and I,” when Munchkins have done nothing special to earn that remark. It’s kind of an ironic slight, all things considered. “The Wizard and I” is perhaps the most jarring, because as soon as it begins it’s like we’re suddenly watching a completely different character than the Elphaba of the movie up until that point.

Plot-wise, though, my recent gripe was that the lynchpin of the plot, which sets so many story-driving circumstances in motion, is an evil that is, in this musical, never given a musical number to present itself. (Case in point: I once saw this musical, and subsequently listened to the show’s soundtrack numerous times, and one day realized I could not really remember the story.)

That remains true here; what I’d forgotten is that not even the dialogue ever gives the evil a chance to be dissected. For all the villainous tropes about monologuing, this show seems uniquely unwilling to explain things to the audience. This would matter less if it weren’t trying to be a parable on the subject.

In all, Wicked: Part One is a solid film adaptation of the stage show. If your mind drifts from the compelling songs, compelling character work, and compelling art design to the story, you will be frustrated—but its box office so far is an indication of how strongly this movie keeps your mind from so drifting. Its creators manifestly respect the source material while not feeling rigidly bound to every detail and manifestly love the musical theatre genre. If that also describes you, then you’ll enjoy what they’ve created.

To be continued . . .

~

Answer: London and Paris.

1. Not its real title.

2. Jon M. Chu once helped his erstwhile roommate direct and edit a music video/short film raising awareness about a warlord in Africa, so I feel I’m on solid ground making this claim.

3. I’ve seen some criticize that Jeff Goldblum is not playing a character here but just being himself. I think that’s unfair. Goldblum, towering atop a firework-studded Cinderella castle and a city that’s basically Disneyland, was a dead ringer for consecutive-term-serving Disney CEO Bob Iger. I’ll furnish the clips of his performance as soon as they appear online.

4. Cribbed from Narnia.