RATING
Director(s): Jon M. Chu
Country: United States
Author: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox, Gregory Maguire
Actor(s): Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum
Written by Tom Augustine
As a noted Wicked novice, having never seen the original stage musical, I wasn’t aware of the reputation the second half of that beloved show already had — that it was a downhill slope after a top-heavy beginning of showstopping tunes that peaks with the iconic ‘Defying Gravity’. It wasn’t until after the new film, Wicked: For Good, which is entirely devoted to (and even extends upon) that infamously weaker back half, that I came to understand that there was some level of concern already out there about the second instalment’s ability to bring the duology home in a satisfying manner. ‘Defying Gravity’ had already come and gone, being the climax of Jon M. Chu’s first film — though even that showstopper had been hopelessly watered-down by the filmmaker’s sloppy direction and editing. The second half has some notable tunes, to be sure, but nothing on that level — leaving the film to lean on the cumulative power of this story reaching its end point, and the investment of audiences in the parallel arcs of Oz witches Glinda and Elphaba (at least from a financial standpoint, those behind Wicked: For Good needn’t worry — the film looks set to hit $150 million or more on its opening weekend). The already just-okay Wicked: Part One had suffered from the decision to bisect the story in two — a needless, cynical choice evidently inspired by the economic wonders worked for high-budget franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games in the past, but which rarely provide narrative or creative value. It’s true that I am not a fan of the Wicked films, many of the issues in For Good noted in my review of Part One, nor have I read the series from L. Frank Baum that first conjured the wonderful world of Oz. What I am familiar with is The Wizard of Oz, as most of us are, and whose shadow the Wicked films simply cannot escape, even as it tries to graft elements of that story into the fabric of this remixed version in ways both clumsy and unflattering.
I walked out of Wicked: For Good bewildered by the way in which it all wrapped up. I was with an avowed fan of the musical, and bombarded them with questions — ‘but… why did [REDACTED] do that?’, ‘what are they trying to say by [REDACTED]?’, ‘was that… supposed to be a happy ending?’ My screening partner paused. ‘Well, the musical is only about two hours, so it doesn’t really give you a lot of time to think about those things.’ I found myself trying to figure out what had been added, and what was adapted straight from the source. I was aware that the stage show was shorter than just one of these two instalments, so clearly a lot has been grafted on. What is clear is that the musical left those elements out on purpose: so much of Wicked: For Good is weighed down by bloated story obligations, tiresome subplots, and exposition that only muddles the logic of the narrative, rather than clarifies it. In splitting the films, Chu and those behind Wicked have set themselves an impossible task, not unlike Peter Jackson had in stretching out his Hobbit trilogy: the onus is on them to generate new material to pad the runtime, but the story itself is only built to hold what it originally carried. It’s a lose-lose situation, and the creatives behind this series are evidently lacking in the visionary capabilities Jackson and co. brought to the table — and we saw the result of the efforts of those talented artists in that woeful sequel series to The Lord of the Rings. Chu’s Wicked: For Good is a cumbersome film, one that stumbles constantly from one set-piece to another, so busy with antic event that even the maddeningly overhyped emotional connection between Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba and Ariana Grande’s Glinda gets lost in the shuffle. It was striking, watching the film in a packed cinema full of Wicked fans, many of whom had adorned costumes for the occasion, just how dead the air became, how even the built-in silences at the end of songs for applause breaks came and went with just a smattering of half-hearted recognition.
The film jumps forward in time from the events of Part One — Elphaba has embraced her identity as the ‘wicked’ witch of the West, the green-hued outsider conducting attacks on the industrialisation of Oz overseen by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). The powers-that-be in Oz, namely the Wizard and his second-in-command, the villainous magic-weaver Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), run a fascistic propaganda campaign against the witch and her allies, the talking animals, who have been demonised and subjugated by the humans populating the fantasy land. The Ozzian government now turns its eyes to the Munchkins, largely represented by ‘sexy’ Munchkin Boq (Ethan Slater), aiming to oppress them in much the same way. Elphaba’s classmates, including her one-time bestie Glinda and her own sister Nessa (Marissa Bode) grimacingly play their part within the organisation, supporting the measures of the Wizard to keep the populace under his thumb through fear and control. Also in the mix is hearththrob Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey, largely called upon to glower handsomely), who secretly holds a candle for Elphaba but who is betrothed to Glinda through Morrible’s publicity campaign, positioning the ‘Good Witch’ as the face of their movement. In Chu’s adaptation, the plot holes and question marks arrive early and never really dissipate, the main one being — how is Glinda one of the heroes of this story? Through sheer force of will, series standout Grande imbues her character with a profound likeability, but even those best efforts can’t hide the unsettled sensation I had watching the arc — here is a mouthpiece for an organisation not unlike the one currently running the United States, overseeing deportation of oppressed individuals and led by a charismatic charlatan. In this structure, Glinda is responsible not just for the continued alienation of her supposed friend, but for the harm visited upon the weaker individuals of this magical land. It had seemed to me, by the end of Part One, that Glinda was headed away from this position, had awoken to the evils of those in charge — here, the slate is practically wiped clean, and the film goes to lengths to suggest both Elphaba and Glinda are in the wrong in various ways, ultimately providing little in the way of condemnation for all but the most obviously villainous of side characters. Even more bizarre is the characterisation of Elphaba’s sister Nessa — the only character with a disability in the film, she is portrayed as a figure of abject cowardice and selfishness, whose disability is a curse upon her identity — not exactly a forward-thinking position for a film that clearly intends to crow its progressive bonafides.
Exhausting and overcooked, Jon M. Chu’s lengthy finale to the musical adaptation ends the story of Elphaba and Glinda on a bum note. Hobbled by the cynical decision to bisect a stage show shorter than just one of its filmic halves, For Good rarely gets off the ground, in spite of the Herculean efforts of its lead actresses.
As the film proceeds, these and many other plot threads grow ever clumsier, to the point where it’s sometimes difficult to follow a character’s motivations within the course of a single sequence. The key culprit for the failures of For Good, then, are to be laid at the feet of director Chu. The director has managed to take one of the most beloved stage musicals of all-time and expand it garishly outwards into something generally lacking both style and substance. The noted digital morass of the first instalment is even more pronounced here, an ugly aesthetic that renders the intricate sets in muddy tones that attempt to walk the line between fantastical and realistic, to their detriment. The film’s visual approach has more in common with Tim Burton’s hideous Alice in Wonderland films than the original, vividly rendered Wizard of Oz, a notion underlined by the film’s need to provide as much expositional context for elements of delightful fantasy drawn from the original text as possible. Did we really need to know the origins of the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion? Leaving aside that the original film strongly suggests that much of the story was a projection of Dorothy’s fevered unconscious, Wicked’s intention to present a darker, more ‘mature’ manifestation of Oz (right down to the aforementioned ‘sexy’ Munchkins — to say nothing of the attempt to make the Scarecrow into a viable romantic partner) feels completely at odds with the elemental power of Wizard’s endlessly evocative fantasy conjurings.
In this regard, Chu’s direction is simply not up to the job — his camera lacks the balletic energy required for sequences of dance and music (an otherwise enjoyable sequence between the witches and the Wizard that serves as a Part Two highlight is undercut by Chu’s watery choreographical decisions), and scenes of scripted drama are even more hamfisted. A pivotal moment between Elphaba, Nessa and Boq midway through the film is nigh-on indecipherable from an emotional and narrative standpoint, echoing out into the subsequent action of the film’s second half. Much has been made of the diminishing power of the movie musical in the modern day — Wicked supports the argument that it is ultimately a lack of vision and ability on the part of those making the movies that is to blame. Amid all this, the great tragedy of Wicked is the impact upon its two stars. Erivo’s Elphaba remains a distant figure, despite the actress’ technical mastery, a role characterised by her impervious badassery but given little human nuance. Even Grande, justly Oscar-nominated for her Part One performance, feels reduced to caricature here. The less said about the supporting cast, especially the uncharacteristically poor performance of Yeoh, the better. If even the most obvious pleasures of a project like this — namely the music and the performances — can’t be accentuated by the execution, what was the point of doing it at all?
Wicked: For Good is in cinemas now.