Why "Wicked" Is Almost Worth the Time

Bring a Book & Your Blankie

I've just finished reading multiple reviews of the recently released film Wicked. Be warned-Most reviewers don't find the 2 hours and 41 minutes a problem.

And almost all of the critics had seen and loved, actually adored, the Broadway show, a 20 year hit. Most of these reviews are aglow with the feelings they got-of celebrations of friendship, loyalty and identity that both versions engender in them.

This is one of those times I wonder if we saw the same film. Maybe it's just that their eyes and ears projected their memories of the stage production onto their brains.

Or is it another example of the Cognitive Dissonance that is the zeitgeist of our times.

Compare these glowing reviewers with critics who find the film too colorful, too loud, too long with its preachy messages hammering your pysche while numbing your butt.

So here I am, a member of a family whose children took part in local Wizard of Oz productions and hold that story in the warm embrace of family togetherness lore. We have not only photos of my daughter as the wicked witch in the Alameda Children's Musical Theater production but also collected knick knacks and toys of the cast of the movie.

It's a small irony or indeed an illustration of the identity issue that my daughter was the only Black cast member in the troupe and she ended up playing the villain of the story. In terms of lead cast members, Cynthia Erivo is the only one who is Black whereas Ariana Grande plays Glinda as the whitest, blondest white girl in the known world.

So here's how the three of us who attended, to the extent we agreed, responded to the movie.

It was too damn long. We did not love the long music and dance numbers though I enjoyed the Dancing Through Life scene and what it said about superficial and romantic figures in our stories.

There were a number of scenes that could've been cut altogether or at least shortened. The long-ass finale did not need the hot air balloon sequence for instance.

The references to the beloved ‘39 film were everywhere and they were fun (except the hot air balloon one.) The bicycle riding sequence with the lion cub in the basket of the future witch's bike could've been cut along with that whole bit! But the sleep inducing poppies were great, the sleek green 30’s version of a futuristic train with its hint of fascist design-perfect. The best was layering in a brief and amusing cameo with original cast members Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth; and of course, the poor flying monkeys which we learned were experimental creatures.

This film with it's powerful Black woman in the lead whom everyone either scorns, laughs at or is impressed/frightened of, at the center of the story and her cute but manipulative white sidekick/competitor who Michele Yeoh's elegant character repeatedly shuts down ( in the funniest lines of the movie) seemed to us as if it were written last week or at least last month.

Image via Universal Pictures

https://variety.com/2024/film/features/wicked-cynthia-erivo-elphaba-black-queer-woman-1236218605/

At least one of our party saw it as a straight up allegory of our recent election where the powerful moral Black leader gets sold out by her white women friends who easily chose authoritarianism or careerism over fighting for the rights of others. [Lest we get accused of carrying that analogy too far, we must note that Erivo's Elphaba was never a prosecutor.]

Ok, another note that struck at my gut were some of the scenes of the coming disenfranchisement, purge or even destruction of the kingdom's animal leaders who up-to-that-point had been equal members of their society. Hints of Steven Spielberg in those dark scenes remind you that the original Judy Garland classic was made in the 30’s.

Finally we learn that Elphaba's anger and brilliance were to be used in the service of a brutal new regime which clearly defines the need for scapegoats ( the film of course, has an actual scape-goat character who is a long suffering history professor) to unite the kingdom of Oz where dissension had been brewing.

When she realizes the truth and gathers her strength she offers to bring Glinda with her where the two friends might be powerful enough to save Oz but Glinda declines and stays behind, where as you know, she eventually gets the title of “the Good.”

As preface-before the flashback begins we see Oz dwellers hail the death of the Wicked Witch of the West but at one point, a Munchkin asks Glinda,”didn't you used to be friends?” Glinda plays it off as an accident of association but no one asks her, “are you now or have you ever been…”

Go see this movie but prepare for a long haul where you may get a bit tired, maybe chilly, or have a cry when the protagonists embrace for the last time. But you'll sit forward in your seat as the future powerful, maybe good, maybe not…witch soars above and away from the sad little dictator and his banal supporters.

She will lift your spirits and make you question what you know about good and evil and who in the West needs to have a house dropped on them now.

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Happy Thanksgiving but don't stop talking about Palestine.