After a year-long intermission, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are flying back into theaters for Wicked: For Good, directed by Jon M. Chu. The story picks up just after Elphaba (Erivo) has fled the Emerald City, upon realizing that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) isn’t as “wonderful” as she was told.
With its roots as a stage musical, the two acts of Wicked were meant to be separated by a brief intermission. However, with a full year between films, Act Two loses momentum and magic. With no distinct beginning, no reintroduction to characters or plot; theater goers are dropped like a house in the middle of Munchkinland. The appearance of peripheral characters, such as Nessa and Boq, require a hard stop to recalculate how the characters fit into the whole. Yet, once memories are jogged and bearings are found, the compelling performances of Erivo and Grande as Glinda pull you back into the story with force and leave you waiting with bated breath for notes that thread the film together.
Fans of the Broadway show know that Act Two doesn’t feature the same soundtrack highlights as Act One, but to many in the theater it is a surprise. There’s no “Defying Gravity” or “Popular.” Most of the film’s songs, composed by Stephen Schwartz, sound like reprises from the first act. The crowning “emerald” of the second half is “For Good,” though it arrives very late in the film. A close second is “As Long As You’re Mine,” although it feels more like a breadcrumb than it does a powerful piece that theater goers will be belting as they leave their seats.
Where the film falls flat in musical diversity, it soars with eye-catching character transformations. The Academy Award–winning artistry of makeup and hair designer Frances Hannon, known for her work on The Grand Budapest Hotel, along with Academy Award-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell, skillfully and artistically transform Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and Boq (Ethan Slater) into the Scarecrow and the Tin Man. During a recent Q&A, Hannon described how she achieved Fiyero’s burlap skin: “And then it all had threads of burlap sewn into it, then it was flocked afterwards so it had that texture of the fabric, but it’s very much leaving Jonathan. I kept his hair the same, like made of sheets of wheat and barley and oats, and everything from the field. Only 30 percent of it was straw hair, and the rest of it was all hand-sewn in by my early wigs.”
Tazewell further explained how he took inspiration from the original L. Frank Baum books and the film’s sets to create the costumes. For Boq’s Tin Man look, he began by understanding the original silhouette, as well as the outfit and the space Boq is in right before he transforms. “Frances was talking about the jugs in his ears. There was actually a jug that had that was sitting on a shelf that then transformed into that part of his body,” Tazewell explained, “You can see in the film, he’s got a whole pitcher that is his lower arm, and that was an actual antique pitcher that we had in the room. So it was, and throughout, making sure that we were connecting the dots on all the different, you know, the folklore that was around the space.”
The rich and colourful world of the second movie is bolstered by the animal menagerie overlay that inoculates energy and commentary into the film, and punctuates major turning points.
The film’s constant from Act One into Two is undeniably Elphaba and Glinda’s magnetic friendship. Erivo and Grande’s off-screen bond is what Chu admits served as inspiration for the film’s ending. He told Business Insider, “I think that scene is the most emotional pivot point of the movie. The shot of Elphaba outside of the closet and Glinda in it, that was not scripted; they did that in rehearsals. I was weeping when I saw them do that. I had to figure out a way to put it in the movie.”
Despite introduction flaws and the lack of new notable musical numbers, Wicked: For Good is absolutely worth watching. Before heading to the theater take time to rewatch Wicked, pack tissues, and enjoy the wonderful cinematic ride back through oz.
For all that will inevitably be wanting more Wicked when the movie ends, Schwartz, the composer and lyricist for the stage production, revealed to Vulture that he and playwright and screenwriter Winnie Holzman “are doing some work right now on ideas that aren’t a sequel to Wicked.” Feeling that Glinda and Elphaba’s story has been told, Schwartz is looking to borrow more from the broader world that author Gregory Maguire has developed across his Wicked novels.
For tickets to Wicked: For Good, visit wickedmovie.com
Featured Photo Credit: Universal Pictures