REVIEW: WICKED

Historically, the process of musical-film adaptation has been scored on retention--how much of the story did the adaptation gods permit to be carried over into the new medium? Which singing lines had to be tethered to spoken dialogue? Which character got landed with stunt casting? Which scenes weren't actually as bad as you feared they'd be?

Well, Jon M. Chu's adaptation of the Broadway zeitgeist, Wicked, could possibly be the first to evaluated on what the story gained in transition.

The story imagines the history of Elphaba, a green-skinned girl living in Oz who will one day become the famous Wicked Witch of the West. Long before Dorothy dropped in, she was a student at Shiz University, where her story would cross with many who come to shape her life--most significantly, Galinda, the future Good Witch of the North. Before their infamous rivalry, they both wanted the same thing, to gain favor with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. When faced with a growing darkness across the land, both witches will make choices that will change the course of Oz forever.

Fans of the show, of which there are many, will be thrilled to see that this is an adaptation without compromise. This film only covers the first act of the stage show even though its runtime eclipses that of the show in its entirety (eagerly awaiting part 2 next year). Yet it's difficult to account for exactly where all the extra runtime came from, and how it all fits so seamlessly into the existing narrative.

There are some new scenes, but only a handful, and none really that are made out of whole cloth. Mostly just preambles and post-scripts to existing scenes that need extra decompression. It seems that most of what the film adds is just close-ups, that extra degree of proximity that you can get with a camera. And that chemistry has to be the real secret to this movie's finesse: The set pieces are overwhelming, the performances are nuanced.

The songs are exuding kineticism. Every movement through every song was considered. There's seldom a line that isn't paired with some elaborate dance action or aided by some prop, and the few exceptions feel very deliberate.

There's a kind of maximalism here that will certainly make specific factions of the audience squirm (the same sects that will no doubt wonder why movies even have singing to begin with). And yet, it all comes out so measured. Intricate. Dazzling without being distracting. The masterminds behind the present superhero craze are watching this film right now at a loss wondering how in Oz Chu cooked something so extravagant that was also this emotionally investing.

Glinda is both frothy as a bubble bath and earnest as a prayer, and Ariana Grande moves between these modes almost imperceptibly. Elphaba is a role that is easily played as self-pitying or self-important. No one "relates" to her plight more than teenagers standing up to the injustice of curfew. But Cynthia Erivo reminds all audiences that this girl is and always has been an advocate, an emissary for anyone who felt they had no voice, or else felt is slowly being taken from them.

If there is one thread that frayed in adaptation ... the film isn't quite as humorous as the stage show. Almost all of the jokes were lifted word for word, yet the delivery feels less concerned with the irony and double-entendre that came so slickly on stage. Yet even now I'm not convinced that this was accidental or even necessarily a mark against this adaptation. Lines that erred on the side of aggrandizing or excessive on the stage land with more sincerity from the voices of these performers. The film leans away some from the farce, and pathos moves in to fill in the blanks.

As for why this changed in translation, we can perhaps guess. Maybe it's a feature unique to the medium. Maybe it has to do with a growing awareness of wizards on this side of the rainbow and the call that all truly good witches have to resist, even if it means they must stand alone. We could speculate on this for a while.

What seems more certain, though, is that future musicals will have fewer excuses to hide behind. We've seen that the cinematic form can be as powerful as the stage for delivering musical fantasy when you let fantasy lead the way.

Your move, Disney live-action.

--The Professor

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