Is Wicked worth holding space for?

After 20 odd years of long suffering, the people have been given a movie adaptation of the uber successful and beloved broadway musical Wicked. In time for the holiday season, Wicked premiered to significant fanfare and high critical praise. There is a consensus that Wicked might just be the best movie of the year. 

The movie had a $350 million budget and half of that must have been on marketing. The two leads have been on an intense press tour where they’ve had multiple viral moments including this one where they learned a couple of people have been “holding space and feeling the power” of the lyrics of the movie’s climactic song, ‘Defying Gravity.’ You may have seen the memes.

Hype aside, is Wicked worth holding space for? 

The Conservative Citic asks: Is it entertaining? Does it have artistic/intellectual value? Is it liberal propaganda? 

The Conservative Critic Meter Check: Wicked 

Overall rating: Possible the best movie of the year 

Wicked is definitely a contender for best movie of the year. Without having seen every buzzy movie yet, its only real competition (and it’s a tough competitor) is Dune: Part 2 which was also incredible. 

There wasn’t a dull moment in Wicked. Every song is a banger, every scene is essential. There is nostalgia, humor, love, drama, political intrigue and every layer of story one could possibly want in an epic tale. The caveat of course is that – a viewer must love musicals to love Wicked. 

From the performances and the hand built sets to the underlying source material, there wasn’t a piece of artistry off in Wicked. Director John Chu cared a lot and it is very obvious to any viewer that the film was made in a labor of love not only for the story but for movies in general. In a way, this love of movies really paid homage to The Wizard of Oz which inspired the book that inspired the musical. 

The underlying political elements of the story could easily be appropriated by any ideology and if anything the story is hard on elite academia and centralized government bodies lacking in transparency. So it’s a bit of a right leaner (all though I doubt a liberal would agree with the assessment which is to the credit of the film). 

A huge budget does not make a movie good. The movie (part 1 and 2 combined) cost Universal Studios $350 million (odd) but recall movies like John Carter with comparable budgets that were pretty bad. 

Overall it is one of the best movies of the year – if not the best- and it’s a great one to see for the Holiday season. 

Note: Because the advertising has been very sparkly and fun, it’s important to know that some of the themes of the movie are pretty heavy for kids and there are a couple of parts that might even be scary for a small child. 

Is it entertaining? 

Rating: Fully 100%

There is a lot going on in Wicked. Due to its nature as a ‘part 1’ some may rightly be concerned that the pacing is too slow in order to draw out a longer run time. This is not the case. The movie kicks off strong with a beautiful soprano number for Ariana Grande as Glinda the Good as well as a pretty high intensity setup of the story. From there, the songs are a well done blend of solos for the power house leads and big choral numbers. There are more than a few laughs largely thanks to Grande’s Galinda/Glinda. Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba is easy to root for and as the movie draws to a conclusion, the heat is turned up on the adventure of the story. 

The emotional resonance of the story has always been something that made Wicked strong even on broadway. In the movie, it’s brought to life in new and unexpected ways with numbers that are not traditionally the show stoppers bringing audiences to tears. 

Those who like musicals, whether they are familiar with Wicked or not, will enjoy the film from start to finish. 

Does it have artistic/intellectual value? 

Rating: All of it

It has to be said, all though it’s been said again and again, that the performances in Wicked particularly by the two leads are indescribably good with no weaknesses from acting to singing to chemistry. The performances make the movie. But director John Chu did not lean on the performances to carry the movie and the care taken to produce the film shows up in a meaningful way. The film is not made on a green screen. They designed and made all of the spectacular sets seen on the screen including planting fields of flowers. It looks incredible and adds real magic to the visuals. Of course, some CGI is used, there are talking animals and magic. But Chu leans as hard as he can on true ‘movie magic’ and it really makes a difference for viewers connecting more tangibly with the story. 

On the performances, Ariana Grande is known as a phenomenal singer but her soprano in Wicked is beyond anything a casual fan will have heard of hers and is on its own enough to move to tears. Cynthia Erivo is a well known broadway powerhouse having won a Tony for her performance in The Color Purple but she really does not let up on the gas from start to finish. The two women sang their numbers live on set instead of in a recording studio for dubbing which once again adds something spectacular to the final product. It’s worth noting that both women turn in exceptional acting performances as well as their singing with Grande managing an impossible nuance of ‘funny and shallow’ and ‘deeply heartfelt.’ Cynthia reads very young and naive and is a believable young girl which, considering her past roles, is surprising and makes the story work even better than it has in part interpretations.  

Bowen Yang of Saturday Night Live fame is comedic relief in the film, bouncing off Grande’s Galinda with something between sharpness and ease. Yang’s lines are almost entirely improvised and happened live on set much like the singing. This made for necessary laughs to cut up a fairly heavy bowl of material and was one of the more important parts in creating the experience of the movie even though it was seemingly a small part. There is not a single lacking performance in the entire movie so to list all of the strong showings would be to list the entire cast. 

The film’s editing was also a masterclass which lent itself to the movie’s strength. There are montages and flashbacks which happen creatively and seamlessly. There has been some controversy in the film’s lighting because a lot of the movie is backlit which washes out some of the colors. Some critics lament this choice, reminiscing instead of the technicolor of The Wizard of Oz. However, the backlighting of the movie made it a little darker which is more in line which the steampunk themed set design of the Wicked stage musical. On stage, Wicked has almost no color except the outfits worn by cast members. It makes the reveal of the Emerald City more dramatic on stage. So ultimately, the choice to backlight the beautiful sets was more true to the stage experience and most viewers won’t even notice. 

Wicked is a masterpiece, plain and simple. 

Is it liberal propaganda? 

Rating: If anything it distrusts academia and government 

Wicked has a political intrigue in its plotline. What’s fun about it is that any person with any political ideology could probably make the intrigue fit their own personal narrative. So instead of being void of politics, it’s somehow universally political. Without giving too much away, the film is skeptical of elite academia and centralized government. In those ways it has a right lean. But certainly those with leftist beliefs would probably think it has a left lean for their own reasons. 

Conclusion 

Wicked might just be the movie of the year.