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Bad review: Defies gravity and expectations

Vaseline Posted on November 19, 2024

Grande brings a weirdness to Glinda that makes the character. She applies her operatic vibrato to the most ridiculous lyrics and dominates the screen with all the charisma you would expect from a global pop star. There is an effervescence to her performance, and she carries herself with elegance and bizarreness at the same time. It never detracts from the more emotional performances – especially when the mood of the film changes dramatically in the third act – and it never overpowers Erivo. The two sync up like they were born to do it, their heartfelt connection heightening the emotional stakes of the film’s final minutes. (Here we should note that Wicked only covers the musical’s first act: Part II, and everything that comes after the anthemic “Defying Gravity” will hit theaters next year.)

Erivo is reserved but never fades into the background, while Grande is boisterous without ever taking up too much space. Wicked only works if your Elphaba and Glinda find that delicate balance, and it’s immediately clear in their first scene together that Chu and company certainly knew that. Their singing is unsurprisingly incredible, but it’s also the quiet moments they share that carry just as much weight. Frankly, it’s hard to be coherent about how a lot of these two made me feel. But I can say that I started and ended the movie in tears.

As Elphaba, Cynthia Erivo is a true revelation. I was in awe of the artistry she brings to one of the most iconic characters in musical theater history. I knew she would be good, but I wasn’t prepared for it How Good. Snippets of her rendition of “Defying Gravity” have been leaked here and there, but nothing compares to hearing it for the first time in theaters. It is enchanting, a hymn to the altar of resistance – resistance to doubt, to shame, to what others want you to be. It’s hard not to hear “Defying Gravity” and everything it stands for as a rallying cry in a time of rising bigotry targeting women, queer people, trans people and people of color. That’s not to say that one knockout performance from Erivo will save us, but there is the slightest comfort in seeing her release the song as a roar, giving us an Elphaba who will accept the trappings of villainy if it means we having to do the right, moral thing. .

Not everything works visually in Wicked. The animal characters fall into a kind of CGI trap, drawn from the same uncanny valley as the characters from Disney’s live-action remakes of The Jungle Book and The Lion King. On stage, characters such as the professorial goat Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) dressed up as human-animal hybrids – including the flying monkeys, who are just as disturbing now as they were when they terrorized Dorothy and friends in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz – making the Wizard’s true plans even more horrifying . Given Wicked’s (unfortunately very prescient) allegory of state-sanctioned discrimination, it would have been interesting to opt for more humanoid character designs.

Colors also feel strangely washed out at times. Shiz’s courtyard falls victim to this: beautiful, but not quite the colorful fantasy you would expect from an Ozian university. For all its strengths, ‘Dancing Through Life’ also suffers from this. The song is made up of two different halves: at Shiz and at a club called the Oz Dust Ballroom. In, one imagines, a purposeful contrast to the intensely saturated Oz Dust, the Shiz library is much more subdued. However, there are moments where characters, especially Grande and her pink pastels, blend into their surroundings in a way that doesn’t seem so intentional. There is a little too much light coming through the windows and not enough contrast within the set. However, the Emerald City does not have this problem, and neither do specific areas of Shiz, such as Glinda and Elphaba’s bedroom or Headmistress Madame Morrible’s office.

These relatively minor flaws aside, Wicked is a truly faithful adaptation of a beloved musical, and the film has a number of surprises in store (including one particular cameo that had my audience cheering). It’s a long film, about two hours and forty minutes, but it never drags. Holzman’s book (with which she adapted the film). Cruella co-writer Dana Fox) is just as powerful in the hands of this cast and Chu graciously does justice to Schwartz’s beautiful music and lyrics. The sound mix ensures that the cleverly constructed pun in his words sounds clear, never too overwhelmed by orchestration or muddled during huge musical numbers. The voices of the cast are clear, their emotion is expressed. It’s clear that Chu took enormous care to honor Wicked and as a loyal fan, I’m grateful he did so. Given how much the mood shifts in the show’s second act – a snippet of which we see here – I wonder how he’ll follow this up.

However, Grande and Erivo are who I keep coming back to. It’s Glinda and Elphaba that I will continue to think about and I already know that Erivo’s “Defying Gravity” will appear in my mind as often as Menzel’s. Not to be cliché, but if Wicked is the sun, I am the comet torn from its orbit and watching this adaptation has certainly changed me forever.