By Sophia Monastra
A year ago, “Wicked: Part 1” released and was reviewed by an intrepid Arts and Entertainment writer who had only just realized the musical “Wicked” had been split into two movies and she had to wait a year before finishing it.
With the one-year intermission, you’d have to wonder–is it worth it?
Well, “Wicked: For Good” is far from perfect. The main issue with the movie is that “Wicked” is originally a singular Broadway musical, and transferring it into a different visual medium comes with challenges.
On Broadway, “Wicked’’ has two acts split by a brief intermission. In movie format, “Wicked: For Good” picks up after the first act, launching audiences straight into propaganda nightmare Oz. There’s no recap or entry point for new viewers, or viewers returning after a year’s worth of life. There’s not a good way around this problem, but it’s still a problem.
“Wicked: For Good” opens at some point in time after “Defying Gravity.” Elphaba has been branded the Wicked Witch and is hiding outside the Emerald City. Glinda has become Oz’s celebrity.
In the story, “Wicked: For Good” takes place a year after the first movie, a fact I only learned when looking up the movie on Wikipedia afterward. There was a line in the beginning that led me to believe there had been a twelve-year timeskip. Thankfully the time-jump is only one year, making more sense with the visual design of the characters.
Despite having a year of anti-wizard confrontations, Elphaba’s goals are never really clarified. Sure, she wants to show people the truth about the wizard, but how exactly is flying around harassing Oz guards helping that?
There were storytelling elements I appreciated. One specific choice involved a key character: Dorothy. While Dorothy’s journey overlaps with Elphaba’s story, Dorothy’s face is never shown on camera. It makes sense because this isn’t Dorothy’s story. She’s just a piece in the larger deconstruction of Ozian politics.
Yet despite good elements in the story, there are a few other problems with pacing. With several dark scenes leading up to Elphaba’s midpoint confrontation with the Wizard. Elphaba’s messages are twisted at every turn. The talking animals abandon Oz. Elphaba learns that Glinda is getting married to Fiyero, the man Elphaba loves. And to top it all off, Elphaba’s relationship with her sister is gone.
While all of this darkness looms, a dramatic tonal shift occurs, including a song-and-dance number under disco lights, while she goes to meet the Wizard.It’s a good song, but tonally jarring, and it destroys the tension that was building until that point (the tension is restored, but it’s not the same).
Speaking of, the music in “Wicked: For Good” has the unfortunate challenge of being from the second half of the musical. Most of the songs are less well-known and loved, with the exception of “For Good.”
To counter this, a couple of new songs, written by “Wicked” original songwriter, Stephen Schwartz, have been added. “The Girl in the Bubble” is a fantastic transition out of “March of the Witch Hunters.” “No Place Like Home” fits within the song style of “Wicked: For Good,” but it does raise some questions about some of Elphaba’s later decisions that never emotionally pay off.
With existing songs, the pacing between Elphaba’s climatic breakdown song “No Good Deed” and the uplifting “For Good” happened incredibly fast, without enough time for the audience to get any sense that Elphaba had changed or wrestled with emotional decisions. This is likely a fault inherent in the musical, but the musical has the excuse of needing to fit two acts into three hours.
So, in the end, was “Wicked: For Good” worth a twelve-month intermission?
Well, I’ve seen so many movies, and while this isn’t the only one that ever mattered, and while I can’t say it’s changed me for the better, I would say it was pretty good.
“Wicked: For Good” is currently playing in theaters
Sophia Monastra is a Senior Professional Writing and Information Design major. She mourns the Oxford comma every day.
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures
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