Wicked For Good
Maybe not so wonderful after all.
“There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities,” sings the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) as he tosses a balloon globe in the air in an homage to Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. The second half of the Wicked stage musical attempts to complicate the story that’s been set up by the first, to mixed results. The deftness of Chaplin’s satire won’t be found here: this adaptation attempts pathos but can’t wring much substance from its source material. “Defying Gravity” was a rousing climax at the end of the first installment; everything that comes after is a letdown, unable to take flight again.
After the events of Wicked: Part One, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) have parted ways. Elphaba is in hiding, fighting back against the oppression of talking animals in Oz, while Glinda has taken on the role of spokesperson for the Wizard. Oz has fallen into fascism. Talking animals have been forced to leave or else give up their ability to talk. Other residents aren’t allowed to travel without a permit. All roads lead straight to the Emerald City, built on the backs of the animals who’d once been treated as citizens.
The new film doesn’t spend much time interrogating the state of things. In its telling, fascism is something that happens in faraway lands, enacted only by the cartoonishly nefarious, never possible here, never enabled by the inaction and fear of good and ordinary people. When the Wizard sings about moral ambiguity, he talks about how “we act as though it doesn’t exist” because we’re uncomfortable in the gray areas, but Wicked: For Good doesn’t have a good grasp on its own moral ambiguity either. It keeps shying away whenever the story veers into dangerous territory. In its black-and-white telling, it thinks it has depth simply because it is heavily embellished and its two leads can belt.
The closest the film gets to moral ambiguity is with Glinda’s character. She’s been titled “the Good” and serves as a figurehead witch for the Wizard, though she has no magical talent of her own. She’s always wanted to be loved and adored, and now that she has everything she wanted, she’s starting to realize that it’s all as empty as the enchanted bubble she rides around in. Ariana Grande plays her as a woman cracking in slow motion, trying to hold together the pieces of a life that she’s beginning to realize was only made possible by the oppression of others. She is sympathetic, even in the sequences in which she shouldn’t be. When she’s alone, this works: her character is responsible for her own choices, and the film expresses her increasing ambivalence and heartbreak by passing a camera through a series of trick mirrors or by framing her, distraught, in an empty ballroom surrounded by ruined bouquets. The movie is more invested in Glinda’s personal sadness than it is in the far-reaching consequences of the choices she’s made.
By contrast, Elphaba’s character is strictly one-note, a rebellious woman who’s chosen to embrace the villain title thrust upon her because she’d rather maintain her moral compass than be considered good. That’s an interesting character trait, but the movie doesn’t know what to do with it. Cynthia Erivo doesn’t get anything like “Defying Gravity” here; she’s disconnected from the rest of the movie, a woman alone and unmoored by her principles. By the time the events of The Wizard of Oz roll around, Elphaba has become an afterthought in her own story. No good deed goes unpunished. —Sarah Welch-Larson
★☆☆☆
Wicked For Good is in theaters now.
I walked out feeling like it would have played better if we’d gotten one big movie. As two separate films, part two doesn’t start with the momentum that ends part one, and plays more like a B side.