Wicked: For Good
(PG, 138 mins)
Verdict: Extravagantly sumptuous
A year ago this week, at the European premiere of Wicked, dozens of drag queens dressed as Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, filled London’s Royal Festival Hall.
That extraordinary spectacle in some ways even eclipsed the dazzling film, all too literally if you were sitting behind a man built like a prop forward wearing a pink taffeta dress and a huge beehive hairdo – as I was.
Almost 12 months on, last Tuesday at the Odeon Leicester Square, the premiere of the sequel, Wicked: For Good, unfolded a trifle more soberly.
Despite the barely containable excitement among the crowds outside, especially when leading ladies Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo arrived on the green carpet, the audience was conspicuously less animated than last year.
And I didn’t spot a single beehived drag queen. Maybe they were all sitting behind me.
Yet the film is just as impressive as the first one, if not better. It is considerably darker, though, so that might explain the restraint.
Wicked: For Good is just as impressive as the first one, if not better but it is considerably darker’ Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba
As Glinda, Grande in particular has some mighty emotional depths to plumb, which she does wonderfully.
The story is based on the second act of the wildly successful stage musical, which in turn was loosely adapted from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.
That of course was inspired by Frank L Baum’s original novel and the celebrated 1939 film version with Judy Garland. A lifelong Wizard of Oz obsessive, Maguire’s stroke of genius was to chronicle the Wicked Witch’s life story, calling her Elphaba and exploring her complex relationship with Glinda the Good.
Wicked: For Good begins, mesmerisingly, with the construction of the yellow brick road to the Emerald City.
Meanwhile, the scheming Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his fellow conniver Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) have succeeded in their conspiracy to make Erivo’s good-hearted (but, unhelpfully, green-skinned) Elphaba a pariah, apparently hell-bent on the destruction of Oz.
The people of Oz believe this deceitful propaganda campaign, and when an agitated, indignant Elphaba whizzes overhead spelling out the words ‘The Wizard Lies’ in her broomstick’s vapour trail, Morrible uses her magic to change it to ‘Oz Dies’. That’s Panorama-level editing.
Glinda knows that her old friend is being terribly maligned, but welcomes the accompanying campaign to make her look like the embodiment of goodness.
She has no magic powers, but gladly plays along with the illusion that she does, floating about in a bubble that Morrible has created for her. A bubble of celebrity, if you like.
Wicked: For Good begins, mesmerisingly, with the construction of the yellow brick road to the Emerald City
The scheming Wizard and his fellow conniver Madame Morrible have succeeded in their conspiracy to make Erivo’s good-hearted Elphaba a pariah
The arranged marriage between Glinda and the handsome prince, Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), might make our own King Charles and Queen Camilla sit up in recognition of past tumult
One doesn’t have to work too hard to find analogies to modern-day culture and society in Wicked: For Good.
Come to think of it, the arranged marriage between Glinda and the handsome prince, Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), might make our own King Charles and Queen Camilla sit up in recognition of past tumult.
‘Look what we’ve got, a fairy-tale plot,’ Glinda trills, but Fiyero’s one true love is Elphaba.
Accordingly, the union is an unhappy one from the start. Glinda’s fairy-tale existence begins to disintegrate, and fanciful as it might be to draw parallels with the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, ‘fanciful’ is what Wicked: For Good is all about.
The director is again Jon M Chu, and the screenplay is once more by Winnie Holzman, who wrote the stage version, and Dana Fox.
Erivo and Grande are magnificent in the follow-up, worthy of all the acclaim that will doubtless be dished upon them
Like last year’s film, this one is extravagantly sumptuous on the eye. The sets and costumes are truly spectacular, and the animal exodus from Oz (where Morrible has stripped them of their power to speak) is superbly rendered.
Above all, Erivo and Grande are magnificent, worthy of all the acclaim that will doubtless be dished upon them.
They handle a very funny fight scene beautifully, and both deliver their songs with proper star quality. For those who know the stage musical inside-out, there are one or two new ones to savour.
It’s been the best part of 20 years since my wife and I took our three children to see Wicked on Broadway … with just a couple more years to go until we finally pay off the cost of the tickets.
The price of a cinema seat is much more reasonable, and though you’ll need to have seen the first film to wholly appreciate this one, I can promise that you won’t feel short-changed.
Wicked: For Good opens on Friday
