Wicked review – Grande and Erivo’s chem­istry is unmatched

The streets are abuzz and with the burn­ing of a Guy Fawkes-esque effi­gy, Glin­da the Good Witch (Ari­ana Grande), brings news that the Wicked Witch, Elpha­ba (Cyn­thia Eri­vo), is dead. As she is about to float away, a cit­i­zen asks about her past in the com­pa­ny of the noto­ri­ous vil­lain, and we are sent soar­ing back into Glinda’s schooltime reveries. 

This Wiz­ard of Oz pre­quel arrives on the back of a lengthy the­atre run and has been the sub­ject of the biggest For The Girls™ mar­ket­ing cam­paign this side of Bar­bie, with pink and green adorn­ing every­thing from lip balms to the Arc de Tri­om­phe, so expec­ta­tions are high.

Born with green skin, Elpha­ba (Cyn­thia Eri­vo) is treat­ed with scorn by peers, and her anger man­i­fests in uncon­trolled lev­i­ta­tion. As she escorts her wheel­chair-user sis­ter Nes­sarose (Maris­sa Bode) to Shiz Uni­ver­si­ty, her pow­er unleash­es itself, catch­ing the eye of Madame Mor­ri­ble (Michelle Yeoh), a sor­cery pro­fes­sor who takes Elpha­ba under her wing. Galin­da, a spoiled, prep­py girl, watch­es with jeal­ousy, and as the polar oppo­site stu­dents become room­mates, a rival­ry begins. 

Revert­ing to her the­atre kid youth, Ari­ana Grande sings Wicked’s songs mag­nif­i­cent­ly. Though her abil­i­ties as an impres­sion­ist can be her down­fall, she sounds almost eeri­ly like stage pre­de­ces­sor Kristin Chenoweth with the song ​‘Pop­u­lar’ – plus, her innate com­e­dy skills serve her sur­pris­ing­ly well. A vision in pale pink, she trills, flounces and preens, match­mak­ing and makeover­ing her way into a rich movie lega­cy of icon­ic high school blondes. Even as she runs away in fear in one scene, she toss­es her hair, and she embod­ies a shal­low altru­is­tic, #woke per­son­al­i­ty that sel­dom fails to entertain. 

The film­mak­ing enhances every move Grande makes, from the expres­sions of side­kick Bowen Yang to the clever split screen­ing dur­ing ​‘What Is This Feel­ing?’. Like­wise, co-star Jonathan Bai­ley thrives as a rogu­ish flirt, espe­cial­ly in ​‘Danc­ing Through Life’, as he bounds through a clock­tow­er library, twirling every­one in his vicin­i­ty. Jux­ta­posed with qui­et moments of cut­ting through Elphaba’s defen­sive­ness, Bai­ley opens out the lay­ers of Prince Fiyero’s per­son­al­i­ty like an onion.

Cyn­thia Eri­vo puts her heart and soul into every solo and that effort is evi­dent in every scene. She makes the trick­i­est num­bers look like a breeze, remind­ing view­ers why she is halfway to an EGOT. Her chem­istry with Grande is unmatched as they gaze loathing­ly and lov­ing­ly into each other’s eyes. Togeth­er they rise to the chal­lenge of inhab­it­ing such beloved characters.

From Step Up 2: The Streets, to In the Heights, direc­tor Jon M Chu was born ready for the uphill task of under­stand­ing the dynamism need­ed to flit between inti­mate moments in each num­ber, to fill­ing the screen with impres­sive chore­og­ra­phy. The end cred­its are filled with pages and pages of dancers. Nessarose’s wheel­chair danc­ing with Boq and Elphaba’s entranc­ing bird-like inter­pre­tive dance dur­ing a scene set at a ball are par­tic­u­lar­ly triumphant.

Though the run time may seem exces­sive (two hours and 40 min­utes?!), it is a tes­ta­ment to Chu and his team’s care that each musi­cal num­ber is care­ful­ly built up and cel­e­brat­ed with elab­o­rate set pieces. And, most impor­tant­ly, each is giv­en a pause there­after to allow the emo­tion­al impact to sink in. Ani­mal char­ac­ters played by Peter Din­klage and Sharon D Clarke both pro­vide a com­fort­ing pres­ence dur­ing the down­time, while also adding to the grief at the heart of Wicked’s conspiracy. 

The pro­duc­tion design, espe­cial­ly of the Venet­ian palace that is the uni­ver­si­ty (which seems to be entire­ly wheel­chair acces­si­ble, per­haps the spi­ral stair­cas­es are ramps?) is gor­geous, with tiny details like hum­ming­birds ring­ing bells that all add up to a stun­ning lit­tle world. Like­wise, the cos­tume design fea­tures some fab­u­lous skirts that look like par­ty dress petals and the dress­es in Emer­ald City are akin to con­certi­na Christ­mas baubles.

How­ev­er, the film suf­fers from a slight­ly washed out 2020s CGI Block­buster aes­thet­ic that dulls its shine. There is plen­ty of colour, but while the Broad­way cos­tumes fea­ture sparkles galore and pay homage to its ​’00s ori­gins with camp flam­boy­ance, this mod­ern iter­a­tion is pared back. Though the cal­lig­ra­phy of the title cred­its hark back to the old­er film’s Tech­ni­col­or time, that vibran­cy doesn’t quite hit the same.

Yet there is much to love about Wicked, with the promise of inno­va­tion in Part II, which is short­er and quite rushed in the play. Yeoh redeems her­self after a sim­i­lar role in Paul Feig’s 2022 fan­ta­sy film, School for Good and Evil, and every sol­id aspect of the great dia­logue from the play is giv­en its due dili­gence. It has been a long pro­duc­tion jour­ney, but reach­ing the end of this wind­ing yel­low brick road has yield­ed movie gold.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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