WICKED

WICKED, part one, is a filmed version of Act One of the popular musical play, where Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West in WIZARD OF OZ, becomes friends in college with Glinda, the Good Witch from the North, and they discover there’s an evil plot to put all animals in cages and make them unable to speak anymore. Despite some enjoyable and joyous moments, and a positive view of friendship, WICKED is slow to get started, is sometimes dull and overblown, and has a mixed worldview with good and negative content, including mixed references to witchcraft, some Romantic and politically correct content and an ambiguous philosophy about the nature of good and evil.

The movie opens with Glinda arriving in Munchkinland and telling the people that the Wicked Witch of the West has melted to death. A young woman asks Glinda why evil exists. Glinda replies that she doesn’t think the Wicked Witch of the West started off as evil. The rest of the movie travels into the past and tells the story of Glinda and Elphaba.

For example, the movie shows that Elphaba is the result of an adulterous meeting between her mother and a salesman. When she’s born, her father, who’s the governor of Munchinland, is shocked because she has green skin. He starts treating her badly. Meanwhile, Elphaba sometimes exhibits magical powers, like causing objects to levitate unexpectedly, especially when she’s angry.

Years later, Elphaba’s crippled younger sister, Nessarose, attends Shiz University. Their father orders Elphaba to stay at the college and protect Nessarose. Elphaba obeys, even though she feels they should let Nessarose be independent, despite her wheelchair.

Galinda, which is Glinda’s original name, arrives at the same time. Galinda desperately wants to study under the female professor of sorcery, Prof. Morrible. Elphaba would like to do the same.

However, the other students make fun of Elphaba’s green skin. So, Elphaba gets angry and levitates a bunch of objects, which then fall and crash. Prof. Murrible notices what Elphaba did, and she says that she did the magical levitation.

Morrible becomes interested in personally tutoring Elphaba. She even tells her that she hopes one day to take her to the Emerald City to meet the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Making matter worse, Morrible totally ignores Galinda, even though Galinda tries everything she can to attract Morrible’s attention and ingratiate herself with her. Out of spite, Morrible even orders Galinda to be roommates with Elphaba. All this irritates Galinda to no end. She starts treating Elphaba as her rival and tries to take over their dorm room. Elphaba, of course, fights back.

Meanwhile, both co-eds take history from an educated goat, named Doctor Dillamond. He tells the students he’s the only animal professor left at the university. Galinda doesn’t care, however, because he keeps mispronouncing her name, calling her Glinda. He also tells his class there appears to be a conspiracy in Oz to stop all animals from speaking. Elphaba vows that, if she ever gets the chance, she’ll inform the Wizard of Oz.

A handsome but roguish prince, named Fiyero, begins attending the university. He sings a song in the library. Fiyero’s so charismatic that even the guys swoon over him, especially an effeminate homosexual student. Galinda is immediately attracted to Fiyero, but she’s so self-centered she doesn’t realize Fiyero seems more attracted to Elphaba.

Meanwhile, another student, named Boq, is attracted to Galinda, but Galinda convinces him to bring Elphaba’s sister, Nessarose, to an upcoming dance, out of pity. Nessarose, however, is attracted to Boq and thinks he honestly likes her.

The night of the dance, everyone is having a good time. Professor Murrible arrives and tells Galinda that Elphaba asked her to let Galinda attend her private sorcery lessons. Elphaba finally makes an entrance too, but she’s wearing an ugly witch’s hat Galinda gave her, to humiliate her rival. People start laughing at Elphaba. Instead of getting angry, Elphaba starts dancing by herself in a weird fashion. Her dance piques Galinda’s compassion, and she starts dancing with Elphaba. From that point, the two young women become close friends. Back in their dorm room, Galinda sings a song to teach Elphaba how to become “Popular,” one of the highlights of the play and this movie.

Things come to a climax when guards burst into the history class and arrest Prof. Dillamond for teaching insurrection. A new, human professor takes over the history class and introduces the students to the concept of a cage, designed to stop animals from speaking. He’s carrying a cage with a cute, but afraid, lion cub in it. Outraged, Elphaba unleashes her magical powers and knocks the teacher unconscious. She and Prince Fiyero escape with the lion cub and run to the forest. There, she and Fiyero share a moment together, but he leaves with the cub to hide it deeper in the forest. After he leaves, Elphaba sings a lament that Fiyero could never love her as much as he loves Galinda. That’s clearly not true, however.

Back at the university, Galinda decides to change her name to Glinda, in honor of Professor Dillamond, who was always saying her name wrong. However, her decision is clearly only an attempt to get Prince Fiyero to like her more.

It’s at this moment that Professor Murrible informs Elphaba that the Wizard of Oz has asked Elphaba to travel to the Emerald City for a private meeting. Earlier, Murrible had written to the Wizard about Elphaba and her magical abilities.

As Elphaba boards the train for Emerald City, she says goodbye to Galinda, now Glinda. Elphaba’s so moved by Glinda’s new friendship that she invites Glinda to come with her. Joyously, Glinda agrees.

Elphaba and Glinda are amazed by the fantastic sites in Emerald City. However, when they meet the Wizard, things go terribly wrong, in unexpected ways.

WICKED, part one, is based on the popular Broadway musical play, which has become the second most financially successful play in Broadway history, after THE LION KING. The play is itself loosely based on a 1995 novel by homosexual writer Gregory Maguire, who started as a children’s author (WICKED is Maguire’s first adult novel). Reportedly, the novel is a more serious political allegory about good and evil, while the musical play is more lighthearted, but still has some tragic political and psychological themes.

WICKED, part one, has several catchy tunes, including the show-stopper “Popular,” sung mostly by Ariana Grande, and the big hit at the end, “Defying Gravity,” sung mostly by Cynthia Erivo. The two female leads do a good job with those songs and most of the other numbers. However, the first song, “No One Mourns the Wicked,” where Galinda, now Glinda, informs the Munchkins that the “Wicked Witch of the West” is dead, is dull and bombastic. Also, as sung by Ariana and the Munchkin chorus, the lyrics to the song are muffled and almost impossible to understand.

Also, the story in WICKED doesn’t really start to pick up until Prince Fiyero appears on the scene, and especially when he performs the song “Dancing Through Life.” That’s also when the love triangles start to appear in the story, Glinda and Elphaba’s attraction for to Fiyero, Fiyero’s attraction for Elphaba, Nessarose’s unrequited attraction for Boq, and Boq’s unrequited attraction for Glinda. It’s also shortly after this that Glinda and Elphaba become friends, and Glinda sings about trying to help Elphaba become popular like she is.

Not many people know this, but the original 1900 children’s book, THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ, by Frank L. Baum was partly inspired by the women’s rights, proto feminist activism of his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, who also rejected authority, tradition, and religious revelation and dogma in favor of empirical naturalism. Baum was also affected by his mother-in-law’s historical studies on the “barbaric” practices of witch-hunters (see FINDING OZ by Evan I Shwartz, Mariner Books, but also available on Kindle). Hence, Baum’s depiction of bad and “good” witches in his OZ book and its sequels.

Similarly, WICKED has a Romantic, secular feminist view of men, women and witches. Like the musical play and the original novel, the movie also has a strong environmentalist theme supporting animal rights. This theme seems to get lost in the mix later, as the story turns into a story about fighting tyranny and power-mad civic leaders.

The original WICKED novel questions traditional notions of good and evil. Thus, it sees the “Wicked” Witch of the West as a complex villain who’s treated badly and makes mistakes. By contrast, the Wizard of Oz is depicted as a weak man who makes evil choices because of the corruption in the society around him, not just as a weak but good man as in Frank Baum’s novel THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ and the 1939 movie starring Judy Garland as Dorothy and Frank Morgan as the Wizard. In that light, there’s a touch of moral relativism in the WICKED book and in WICKED, part one. Much more so than in Baum’s original book, which had more clearly defined and traditional notions of good and evil.

All that said, however, WICKED, part one, has some positive aspects to it. For example, the movie, like the musical play, is, at bottom, a story of friendship. Thus, despite their differences, and the fact that the Prince ultimately chooses Elphaba over Glinda, their friendship survives. Act Two of the play and part two of the movie, which is scheduled to open in November 2025, will show their friendship facing more obstacles, but still surviving. The movie also shows that it is better to be selfless than to be selfish, and friendship will bloom from that notion.

In addition, although Elphaba has magical powers, when she finally casts a spell in WICKED, part one, from a book of magic or “grimoire,” the spell has bad, unintended consequences. Similar things happen in Act Two of the play. Thus, as a pop culture phenomenon, WICKED actually shows the dangers of using witchcraft.

There are some other, minor themes to WICKED, part one. For example, a line in the movie makes a positive reference to Heaven. Also, however, the movie has some homosexual elements. For example, as noted above, when the Prince performs his dance in the school library, he’s so charismatic that even the boys swoon when he comes near them. This is especially true for an effeminate Asian male student in the movie who’s clearly a homosexual with same-sex desires. That said, it should be noted that some LGBT leaders think WICKED implies a “homoerotic” relationship between Glinda and Elphaba. Critics of this interpretation, however, note that homosexual activists and critics are always making this kind of interpretation of any text showing a strong friendship between two male or two female characters.

To sum up, WICKED, part one, has its enjoyable, joyful, spectacular, and emotional moments. However, it’s also slightly overblown, sometimes dull and a little too pat. The cast does a wonderful job, but too many of the songs are just okay. WICKED also has strong Romantic, politically correct content, animal rights, and moral relativism. This negative content, though, is mixed with some strong moral content extolling friendship, promoting opposition to tyranny and showing that witchcraft comes with a cost.

MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for WICKED, part one. The movie’s mixture of good and bad veers toward the excessive and unacceptable. Many people who love the classic 1939 movie THE WIZARD OF OZ starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger, Burt Lahr, and Ted Healy will be upset by some of the twists in WICKED. For example, did the creators behind this novel, play and movie have to include themes of seduction, infidelity and government corruption, and twist such an iconic villain and charming title character so far? If you don’t like such an iconic story as THE WIZARD OF OZ, make up your own story! Don’t trash a story that so many people have come to love.