"Wicked: For Good": The Magic of Feeling Over Thinking
What’s more New York than the Empire State Building and a Broadway show? Having seen Wicked on the big screen, we found ourselves taking in the hit Broadway musical during a Spring Break trip to the Big Apple. Sandwiched between the cinematic release of part one and part two, my family and I discovered the magic of the stage play. Wicked: For Good may be the inferior of the three experiences but it still manages to pull off one trick: a theater full of strangers vibing to the songs and spectacle with the sound of sniffles at the end.
Twelve tide turns since Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) came into her own and defied gravity, For Good dives further into the world of Oz. It opens showing a yellow brick road that has been laid and the animals who are being used to continue the work. As the freedom fighter, political activist and Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, continues to wreak havoc against any plan that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) has, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) has managed to prop Glinda (Arianna Grande) up as the goodwill ambassador for the Wizard. As Elphaba fights for persecuted animals and tries to clue the citizens of Oz to the truth, she lives in the woods to keep her distance from her sister, Nessarose (Marissa Bode), the new Governor of Munchkin Land. In a world where the true good is muffled and the performative good is promoted, it’s a true political slight of hand fit for the times.
It’s the same slight of hand in the movie that writers Stephen Schwartz, Winnie Holzman, and Gregory Maguire want viewers to experience outside of it. The gap in time leaves plot holes that likely would have helped part two be as strong as part one. It’s the journey of seeing Elphaba and Glinda grow in their relationship and power that makes the ending of Wicked so powerful. Here, we have to just go with the jumps in character development. How did Nessa become captor over lover of Boq (Ethan Slater)? Why is Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) captain of the Wizard’s guards? While the movie does explain Glinda’s desire to be accepted as her reason for sticking around, we don’t quite get an understanding as to why Elphaba would tolerate her bestie continuing to participate in the charade. Regardless, the film isn’t asking you to think. Instead it wants you to feel.
So if you’re willing to roll with it, you can get swept away in the feels of the story. After all, musicals are an outward expression of what we feel through song. The songs and vocals don’t disappoint here. It’s leading ladies have lungs for days. While arguably Wicked holds the more powerful ballads, the songs in Wicked: For Good support the character development and moments that make this musical touching.
The film, like the stage play, rushes the second half of the story. It loops in some of the major plot points of The Wizard of Oz, giving the behind the scenes that we didn’t know while making sure we don’t focus on Dorothy and her companions too much. Ultimately, as the movie made it’s way to it’s final running time, I heard the sound of sniffling in the screening I was in. I saw a grown man crying next to my daughter on one side and a mother holding her young daughter while wiping tears on the other side of me. So plot holes aside, Wicked: For Good is still affective and may still your heart for a clock tick.
Rating: B-
