Wicked: there’s room on the broom for this dizzying movie musical
Despite its off-putting anaemic pastel look, director Jon M. Chu’s highly anticipated adaptation is packed with eye-catching numbers and strong vocal performances from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande.
The stage musical Wicked is relentless. One song bleeds into the next, with little respite to catch breath as the first act hurtles its way towards the events of The Wizard of Oz. What will strike audiences while watching the movie adaptation of Wicked is that this film is only the musical’s first act, and yet at 160 minutes it is almost the same length as the entire stage production.
This is a good thing. Where onstage the songs are at times indistinguishable, the more relaxed pace of the film allows each musical sequence to be fully realised. Despite its rather anaemic pastel saturation, the production design is a delightful confection of detail (which no doubt would be all the more sumptuous in glorious Technicolor). Director Jon M. Chu understands the importance of cinematic ebb and flow and giving flesh and meaning to his characters.
After a dizzying opening number in Munchkinland set after the events of The Wizard of Oz, we venture back in time to the university days of the Good Witch Glinda (née Galinda), played by Ariana Grande, and Wicked Witch Elphaba, played by Cynthia Erivo. Camp diva rivalry (and a healthy dose of homoeroticism) ensues between the pink ‘Popular’ princess and the green grouch. The casting of Grande and Erivo is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
After decades of movie musicals featuring good actors who can’t really sing (think 2016’s La La Land) and copious autotuning, the power of these women’s voices is simply overwhelming. Erivo’s ‘The Wizard and I’, is staged with all the grandeur of the opening of The Sound of Music (1965). Chu is a director who values spectacle, and unlike modern musical directors like Rob Marshall, he looks to Vincente Minnelli and Gene Kelly in how to frame a dance sequence (the sheer number of dancers in this film fills three screens of the end credits). Highlights of Chu’s distinctive style include the more-bitchy-than-witchy duet ‘What is this Feeling?’, and an emerald-shattering ‘Defying Gravity’.
Some aspects of the musical have aged poorly, especially the treatment of Elphaba’s “tragically beautiful” disabled sister, which would have benefited from some rewriting. But with so much runtime and room to play with, this is that rare adaptation vastly superior to its source. With this only being part one, the second trip down the yellow-brick road has a lot to live up to.
► Wicked arrives in UK cinemas 22 November.