Wicked Review: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are perfect in this Oz prequel that dazzles
Crazy Rich Asians director John M. Chu’s adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical is a visually stunning spectacle, brimming with star power and extravagance, but its sluggish pacing may leave some viewers gasping for restraint.
Wicked
★★★½
In Cinemas November 21
Have you ever been to a film screening where the audience erupted in earth-shattering applause every time an actor entered the frame for the first time? Unless you were at the Sydney premiere of Wicked, I’d hazard to guess, probably not.
That stars Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum (no man has oozed more charisma), Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode and Ethan Slater were all in the room, watching (note: they stayed for the entire screening, a rarity) was an incentive for hooting and hollering. But those in the dress circle didn’t know that, and they were genuinely, ferociously, buzzing (when original Wicked cast members Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth appeared in a cameo, the crowd was so rapturous it seemed the mezzanine might collapse.)
A caveat before we get into things: there are Wicked people and there are wicked people ie: those for whom the musical’s gooey earnestness and BIG BALLADS have never appealed. The two camps are easy enough to recognise: you’ll find the former laughing at the dialogue’s malapropisms (“confusifying,” “discoverate,” “hideoteous”, “swankified”) and the latter going blind with cringe.
This reviewer is in the latter camp. But John M. Chu’s (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights) adaptation isn’t for the sceptics, it’s for the diehards. And they walked out of the State Theatre, a swarm of pink and green, eyeliner dribbling down their face, cheeks cramped from grinning, wholly satisfied.
The story, of course, is still Wicked: a treacly parable about misunderstood women in fabulous hats. Based on Gregory Maguire’s 2003 novel, it is a revisionist origin story for The Wizard of Oz, set in a topsy-turvy world where good equals bad.
We have our two witches: the preening, perfect, pop-u-lar Glinda (Ariana Grande), who is all peroxide, air and sugar but not one of our great thinking minds, and the shrewd and principled Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) who has grown up an outcast, encumbered by her green skin. The two end up bunking together at the wizarding school Shiz University (think Hogwarts by way of a gingerbread house) and thus begins an obsessive, messy, paradoxical, ever-shifting friendship.
Chu’s film does everything — everything — except show restraint. It is so obscenely lavish, glittery and maximalist it would make Baz Luhrmann blush. This is a film that spares no expense (it cost $US145 million), no flourish, and no ounce of spectacle in its quest to dazzle. Production designer Nathan Crowley — whose work here includes planting more than 9 million tulips to line the paths of munchkinland, and building a 16-tonne chlorophyll green steam train — is a shoe-in for the Oscar. It’s gobsmacking, gorgeous stuff, which makes it all the more of a pity that some scenes are backlit so aggressively that they turn into murky, chiaroscuro sludge.
The performances are the film’s greatest strength. Erivo — a Tony winner in 2016 for The Colour Purple — and Grande, who is best known for her pop career, are knockouts. Anyone who has paid the faintest whiff of attention to their bonkers, weepy press run will know that these are the roles they have spent their lives dreaming about, and they give it their all.
Both have extraordinary voices, and both infuse their — admittedly forgettable — numbers, which were reportedly recorded live on set, with a distinct flavour. Grande in particular lights up every scene she’s in, sashaying and trilling like her life depends on it. It’s been long enough since she’s had a substantial role that you forget what a dotty, supremely gifted comic actor she is. In the end, it’s these two who save the film from collapsing under its own weight.
If there is one bone to pick with Wicked, it is its pacing. At two-and-a-half hours, it is a slog. Especially considering this is only the first half of a two-part adaptation (with the second instalment slated for release next November). The film is energised from the outset, but the middle dawdles, weighed down by forgettable subplots — notably, a storyline about the persecution of talking animals, which leads to an explanation of the flying monkeys’ origins, which most of us would likely be content to accept without further elaboration — and the end feels all too rushed (and lacking in Goldblum!)
No one is going into this expecting kitchen-sink subtlety. And by the time the 47th key change rolls around, the sheer bigness of it all will have hammered you into submission and the best option is to simply surrender.