In between seeing the first chapter of Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical Wicked, released last fall, and the second half, Wicked: For Good, which comes out this weekend, I lucked into the gift of two tickets to see the Broadway show itself for the first time—and immediately found myself less psyched for the upcoming cinematic installment. As even fans of the stage blockbuster will admit, Wicked’s second act, the part of the story covered in For Good, is weaker by far than its first. Where the play’s opening act is stacked with unforgettable songs by composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, one of the only memorable numbers post-intermission is the one that gives the second movie its title, a heart-melting duet between green-skinned outcast Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West (played in the films by Cynthia Erivo), and her pink-clad, universally adored frenemy, Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande).
Wicked is one of those musicals whose book (by Winnie Holzman, who co-wrote the screenplays of both movies with Dana Fox, all based on a 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire) exists mainly to tie the musical numbers together. Releasing the filmed version as two halves allows the screenwriters to pad out the show’s dramatic arcs to balance out its frequent song-and-dance breaks. Even movie-musical aficionados aren’t used to sitting down to what, had it not been expanded and then divided in half, would have been something close to a sung-through operetta.
Instead, we have a five-hour-long epic in two parts—arguably a lot of time to spend with a story that amounts to little more than a clever bit of Wizard of Oz fanfic. But Wicked’s irresistible draw is not its plot, a somewhat confusing parable about an oppressive Oz-ian government cracking down on the animal population. It’s the opportunity the show provides for not one but two divas to brandish their vocal chops and their broom- or bubble-wielding skills. Glinda and Elphaba, like Chicago’s Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, are characters big enough to soar above the story they appear in—both figuratively and literally, now that both witches have acquired the ability to go airborne. If Wicked: For Good suffers from a mild case of sequelitis, with less sparkle and more generic blockbuster action than its predecessor, it would be a shame to miss out on Erivo’s and Grande’s movie-star performances during the second act’s big set pieces.
As For Good begins, Erivo’s Elphaba is still on the lam, having fled the Emerald City as a wanted witch at the end of the last act. Authoritarianism is on the rise, with the sinister professor-turned-henchwoman Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) distributing anti-Elphaba propaganda. Meanwhile, the weak-willed Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) continues his regime’s mistreatment of Oz’s population of talking (and sometimes singing) animals, with anti-Munchkin sentiment also on the rise. Glinda, for her part, has become something like a reality TV star, a witch with no real magical powers who is paraded before the public as living proof that fairy-tale happiness is possible. To this end, Morrible is pushing Glinda into marrying the dimwitted but dashing Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) in a grand public ceremony—but Fiyero is secretly ambivalent about the wedding, having realized near the end of Part I that it may have been Elphaba he was in love with all along.
If you’re seeing Wicked: For Good with small children, go in knowing that the film contains some scary and mildly violent scenes, starting with the opening images of a Yellow Brick Road being built using the forced labor of buffaloes and other animals. When Elphaba appears on her broom to smack down the human Oz-ians who are tormenting these beasts, it’s both a justified act of resistance and an early sign that we are now in a darker, grimmer place than the whimsical, candy-colored setting of the first film. Because Elphaba remains in self-imposed exile for most of the movie, Grande’s Glinda emerges as the de facto protagonist of this half. Grande’s performance as the vain and frivolous but inwardly insecure Good Witch is this movie’s most reliable source of energy. Her impeccable comic timing and staggering vocal range, along with the obvious delight she takes in swanning about in Paul Tazewell’s confectionery costumes, give the movie levity even in the draggier stretches. Two new songs composed by Schwartz for the soundtrack, one each for Elphaba and Glinda, do a fine job of filling in character beats and giving the often-offscreen Erivo more to do, but I doubt you’ll head to the cineplex escalator humming “The Girl in the Bubble” or “No Place Like Home.”
Erivo’s most arresting solo in For Good is the power ballad “No Good Deed,” belted over a backup chorus of flying monkeys as she officially proclaims her own villain origin story. Jonathan Bailey, who nearly stole the first movie with his endearing portrayal of Prince Fiyero as a morally conflicted himbo, has little to do for much of part two but stand next to the determinedly peppy Glinda looking miserable. But he does shed the long face—and, fans of the newly anointed “Sexiest Man Alive” will be pleased to learn, his shirt—for a love duet with Elphaba in her Gothic forest lair. The production design by Nathan Crowley is as stunning in its level of atmospheric detail as his work for the first film, even as the look shifts from “Candy Land game board” to “steampunk dystopia.”
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A good deal of screentime is expended establishing backstories for the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man, even though the overlap between Wicked’s story and that of the 1939 Wizard of Oz (or the L. Frank Baum book it was based on) serves mostly as a pretext to explore the expanded Oz-iverse. The resolution of these characters’ arcs, and of For Good’s several other subplots, feels unsatisfying, rushed through and at the same time too fussed over.
But any sense of disappointment that Wicked: For Good doesn’t quite live up to the first movie pops like a big pink bubble the moment Erivo and Grande unite one last time to sing the showstopping duet “For Good.” It’s a testament to the all but diabolical power of musical theater that, even after nearly five sometimes exhausting hours in this visual-effects-crammed fantasyland, a viewer—OK, fine, I—can be moved to tears by the angelic voices and all-too-human emotions of two women together on a screen, singing in gorgeous harmony and with evident depth of feeling about their long, thorny, but ultimately life-transforming friendship. If you can get through that closing number without wanting to go home and call up the old friend you would most like to sing it with, you may, like the Tin Man, need to go in search of your heart.
