Movie honours its Broadway roots at expense of cinematic depth
A friendship painted in shades of green and pink, a tune that resonates with the heart that has been loved, and a battle cry for the downtrodden. Wicked is home for the ostracised, voiceless, and yes, even the popular kids.
So, when Wicked: For Good opened in cinemas, every Glinda, Elphaba and Boq ran to pick up where they left off – the Wicked Witch of the West’s battle cry in Defying Gravity.
Still emotionally reeling from Wicked: Part 1, a year later, we are given Wicked: For Good to start on a high note. But did the director, Jon M. Chu, make the right move? We reckon that is exactly where he went wrong.
Picking up from where the first movie left off, a year’s worth of gap may have created an anticipation dissonance – some were losing patience while others were impetuously hyped.
It has been established that the movie is an adaptation of the Broadway play Wicked, and in an attempt to pay homage to its theatre origin, it was split into parts – Act 1 and Act 2.
Here is the thing: the dynamic framing of a stage play is vastly different from that of a movie – as such, cinematic depth was sacrificed in Wicked: For Good.
While underdeveloped, one-dimensional characters are usually passable on stage, given the pace limitation of a live play, they are unforgiving on screen.
And, this is where Wicked falters.
Feeble return to Oz
The movie tried to imitate the Broadway production, when it should have been telling a story through the camera lens, which means character development that should have happened in-between of Wicked: Part 1 and Wicked: For Good.
Instead, the film opens well into the political revolution led by Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) at the height of her demonisation, when we were left at the cusp of the green girl’s character breakthrough and not the maturation of it.
Not only did the anti-protagonist suffer this curse, but characters such as Boq (Ethan Slater), Nessarose (Marissa Bode), Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and even Madame Morrible (Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh) evolved into static characters when they should have been dynamic ones.
Since the audience did not experience the growth, when these characters were thrust prematurely into the movie’s culmination, they did not fit into the story’s resolution.
By way of illustration, how did Boq start working for Nessarose? Or why did Fiyero, a prince, join the Emerald City Guard?
The questions were asked, and answers were implied. But the audience? Well, they were left confused. For the superfan, who has either watched the Broadway show or read the book, implications were enough to get along, but for those who were introduced to this Emerald City spin-off via Wicked: Part 1, they were left underwhelmed with the lack of character development.
In fact, we were not given the privilege to learn and understand the depth of Elphaba and Glinda’s (Ariana Grande) friendship, which is the heart of Wicked – or should have been.
Instead, we were shown their mature friendship but not a glimpse of the journey it took to get there. The pace felt like a sprint – each frame was a choppy display of fleeting moments leading to an anti-climactic end.
To put it plainly, Wicked: For Good mercilessly ripped off the thin veil of nostalgia laced over Wicked: Part 1, and exposed its plot holes.
Wrapped in glitter gowns
Despite its flaws, Wicked: For Good was not all a lost cause. Where it lacked in storytelling, it made up for it in costume design and music.
Paul Tazewell, who worked with Wicked (film and stage) and other famous shows such as Hamilton and Death Becomes Her, did more storytelling through fabrics and threads than the movie itself.
It is not too far-fetched to say that the film heavily relied on costume storytelling.
With meticulous nods to the colourisation of the Broadway costumes, Tazewell brought the finesse of costume design to the sets of Wicked (the film).
In Wicked: For Good, Glinda switches her mostly pink wardrobe for a blue and pink dress lined with spirals, which represented her loss of innocence and spiralling realisation that she was now complicit in political corruption.
The dual colours portrayed her conflicting conscience, a battle she alone faces in the movie, before truly stepping into the shoes of Glinda the Good in all pink. Yes, that very pink gown, which is a nod to the Broadway costume inspired by House of Dior’s Junon gown.
For Elphaba, we first saw her in a refined silhouette – a dress that is fit for the governor’s least favourite, obedient daughter. No creases, no damage. Sleek and … orderly.
However, when she rebels, her cloak carries the coarse pattern of a tree bark as if to portray the disruption in her development that led to her final form – the anti-hero.
Even Fiyero’s relaxed silhouettes from the first movie were replaced with higher collars and tighter vests to show his concealed, ulterior motive. Tazewell’s brilliance in Wicked’s costume storytelling is incomparable, and for that alone, he deserves his flowers.
Masters at work
One thing Chu has gotten right, besides Fiyero and Glinda’s perfectly executed dreamy wedding scene, is the cast and crew.
In Defying Gravity, Erivo gave us the iconic riff, which overtook the blueprint sung by Idina Menzel, the original Elphaba. For the second movie, she reminded us why she is Elphaba – and also made us wonder just how many sets of lungs does she have?
Fans walked into the cinema hoping to cry their eyes out for For Good, just like the team marketed for, but Erivo’s performance of No Good Deed thwarted that notion and left the congregation speechless… no, breathless.
Delivering her signature, a riff within a belt, No Good Deed rang through the rest of the movie defiantly, leading us to the anti-climactic For Good, which was preceded by The Girl in the Bubble that perhaps should have been a skip.
Grande carried the song beautifully, but it had no significance, especially when the new tune was meant to be Glinda’s “character development”.
The song came a little too late.
That brings us to For Good. It elicited the tears that it anticipated – but that is purely drawn out by the emotional weight of Erivo and Grande’s vocal chemistry… and Stephen Schwartz’s, the composer and lyricist of Wicked, lyrics.
Fun fact: Schwartz is also known for producing many Disney classics, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas.
Despite its feeble storytelling, Chu paid respect to the first inception of the Emerald land, The Wizard of Oz (1939), by making the title card the same font as the iconic movie. But that effort drowns in the off-key finale of Wicked: For Good.
In essence, the movie lacked panache as it relied heavily on its cast, costumes and music. For a story that occupies a defining space in pop culture, the absence of narrative conviction was hard to ignore.
