transmission forty-two: "wicked"

fifteen again

look, sometimes a movie just wins you over. i think that there are a fair amount of critiques one can comfortably make of “wicked”. first and foremost, everyone’s been saying it: it’s wild that a movie that is a prequel/reimagining of “the wizard of oz” looks as drab as this film does. the color grading is all out of wack, for reasons that one can only presume are “realism”-oriented, and it’s not a good creative choice. this was, in fact, the only creative choice i was really familiar with before watching the movie. i had not seen any trailers, i had not really engaged with any of the marketing material, and i even realized i hadn’t even looked at the entire cast, as i was constantly getting surprised by who the characters were getting played by. i went into this movie fairly blind, and fairly skeptical. there was a good, fundamental reason to be skeptical: they’ve been trying to make a “wicked” movie for a damn long while. they’ve been trying to adapt “wicked” basically since 2009, only six years after the musical came out and was an instant success. the initial date set for the movie adaptation of the musical was 2016. so i really was skeptical that they would ever manage to produce this film. but here it is: a single, complete unit of “wicked”-ness that, yes, only adapts half of the musical.

let’s talk about that split, first of all. i was having a conversation with a friend the other night, about “wicked”, and it got me thinking about the most recent blockbuster hollywood film to end with a “part one”: “dune”. “dune” was, by all means, a gamble. it’s easy to dismiss it now that both movies have come out and been intensely popular, but they did not start production on “dune: part two” until it was clear that “part one” had been a smashing success. and conceptually, success for a new, drab, grey, clinical adaptation of “dune” by the “blade runner 2049” guy (another movie that wasn’t a big financial success, mind you) would do well at the box office. so i think “dune” counts as a surprise. “wicked” will not be a surprise. it will do extremely well. the world loves “wicked”.

so, wait, what’s “wicked” about? well, it’s “the wizard of oz” told from the perspective of the wicked witch of the west. her actual name is elphaba, and she is made sympathetic, as we get to see her backstory as a young adult enrolling in university, trying to control mysterious powers that flare up whenever she gets upset, and striking a rivalry with galinda, the future good witch of the north. if you plan on seeing “wicked” without having seen “the wizard of oz”, i would recommend against it: it is very much a prequel that plans on you having engaged with the original film. it opens with one of the most memorable moments at the climax of “the wizard of oz”, and then takes us back to way before any of those events occurred. i won’t do a play-by-play of all the different musical numbers and how much i enjoyed them, but overall, the film does a solid job of staging these grand sequences. director jon m. chu has gotten more comfortable in staging the sort of grand musical numbers that characterize films such as these, when compared to his last musical outing “in the heights”. the movie i think does suffer from having to ground these musical sequences in an actual setting, as opposed to the make-believe land of the theater stage. frequently songs will halt for dialogue to occur, and so musical sequences are rarely frenetic all the way through, instead being taken in chunks, in between which plot-critical events may happen. this is especially noticeable in the film’s climax, which contains one of the most iconic broadway tunes ever composed. it’s an impressive song, perfectly delivered by cynthia erivo, on whose skills the movie really rests, but it is a slight shame that the movie doesn’t feel the confidence to let us experience the sequence in one go.

if you’re skeptical to the idea of a “wizard of oz” prequel that adds a lot of lore to it, i am unsure whether “wicked” could’ve ever won you over. the shadow of “wicked” and its impact over pop culture the last twenty years looms large, and i’m afraid that a lot of the tricks that it pulls have already been re-interpreted and pre-used by different blockbuster properties. the animated film “frozen” casts its “evil witch” role as a sympathetic protagonist, even giving her the song “let it go”, unarguably its own version of the “wicked” tune “defying gravity”. they even got idina menzel, who originated the role of elphaba on wicked, to play elsa in “frozen”, in case you really wanted hard evidence of this fact. so inherently, it has taken so long for a “wicked” movie to come out, that it’s hard for what the story does to feel as radical as it once did. this movie spends a fair amount of time setting up “lore” and story beats that maybe don’t feel comfortably concluded in this film. from my experience with the theater version, however, “wicked” act two has always felt like a part of the story that has great songs, but feels rushed to death. while it may seem excessive to some to adapt just the first act into a movie that is nearly three hours long, i think in the long term, the second movie will benefit from that choice, as i think it will finally be able to breathe, in a way that it never really has gotten the chance to in the theater stage.

and hey, you might feel differently. this is true for every transmission of the infinite turnpike, of course, but specifically this one feels like an important one for me to remark on. you see, at age fifteen, i was a big theater kid. i loved “company” and “into the woods” and “wicked” and yes - even “rent”. i still do, really, but it’s been a part of me that has laid dormant for a while now. every once in a while, we’ll get a big hollywood musical - i’ll admit i did not watch wonka, but i enjoyed “in the heights”, and spielberg’s “west side story” is masterful - and i’ll remember how much i love the genre, how much i think can be accomplished by conveying story through choreography and emotional beats through show tunes. if you can, watch “wicked” in a big movie theater, packed with people who will laugh at the jokes, and clap after the big tunes have ended. that’s what i did, and it helped me beat my own cynicism and get wrapped up in this movie’s big… green hug? this metaphor sort of flew away from me, but that’s alright. i’ll see you next week.