'Wicked' Review: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande Make a Compelling Case for Musical Theater on Screen

"Popular" is one of Wicked's defining songs, and when applied to the 2003 stage musical, it's an epic understatement. The show's themes of female companionship, empowerment, and prejudice definitely struck a chord with audiences of up to 65 million, generating about $1.7 billion in Broadway grosses and approximately $6 billion globally. Producers have taken their time bringing the golden property to the big screen, and their patience has paid off handsomely in Jon M. Chu's eye-popping film adaptation, which deepens the original material while commemorating the Golden Age of Technicolor MGM musicals, most notably The Wizard of Oz.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in 'Wicked.'

Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Universal has a massive built-in audience of two decades' worth of superfans known as "The Ozians" or "Wickhards." It's easy to envision fans jumping to their feet and applauding after their favorite songs when the film hits theaters — singalong screenings seem unavoidable — and a couple of longer cameos late in the action will make heads explode. The directors understand exactly what their core audience wants, and they deliver big time.

You will probably feel the same way about the film if you thought Wicked on stage was too feminine or bubbly for your taste, or if its message about otherness being a handy target for growing fascism was too strong.

When the program initially premiered, it was criticized for having an overloaded plot. When it was revealed that the film will be split into two parts (Part 2 is set to premiere in November 2025), many people asked, "Why?" Part 1 is two hours and forty minutes long, thus it cannot be accused of defying brevity. (Sorry.) However, the screen extension provides the content greater breathing room, resulting in benefits such as intimate character access and poignancy.

Chu isn't Vincente Minnelli, and his bustling production numbers occasionally threaten to spiral out of control, but he gets what counts most. That would be the fluctuating affections of two young witches. One is a cheerful blonde princess, arrogant and entitled, who has yet to uncover her gentle heart, while the other is a defensive outsider, seen as a freak since she was born with brilliant green skin but with strong powers.

Grande and Erivo give Stephen Schwartz's compositions — comedic numbers, melancholy ballads, and power anthems — an unforced spontaneity. They contribute to our belief in the inherent musical premise that these individuals are breaking into song to communicate emotions too big for spoken words, rather than just mouthing lyrics and trilling melodies that someone spent hours polishing up in a studio. The decision to record the songs live on set whenever feasible is a significant advantage.

Both actors have extensive musical theater experience, which allows them to seamlessly move between speech parts and songs. They seamlessly merge one segment into the other, with no uncomfortable pauses where some performers appear to hesitate and gather themselves, all but proclaiming, "I'm going to sing for you now."

It can be difficult to suspend disbelief in modern movie musicals, but Grande and Erivo in particular (who delivers her best on-screen performance to date, making Elphaba the film's bruised, beating heart with a performance of breathtaking raw vulnerability and emotional shading) captivate us into the narrative and the experiences of the characters to the point where we forget the genre's inherent artificiality.

Chu's colorful world-building is an important aspect of this. He collaborates with the talented cinematographer Alice Brooks, production designer Nathan Crowley, and costume designer Paul Tazewell to create a fully dimensional, immersive fantasy world.

Visual effects are used throughout, but unlike many films that rely heavily on CG eyesores, digital technology is used as an enhancer or for specialized objectives such as inserting talking animal characters and sewing together composite scenes. Crowley has done miracles in creating the mythical realm of Oz with large-scale buildings on soundstages and backlots, and the cast's performances benefit from being in real surroundings rather than in front of green-screen backdrops.

Shiz University, where Galinda and Elphaba are first-year students, the surrounding woodlands, and Emerald City, where they go to meet "The Great and Powerful Oz" (Jeff Goldblum, relishing the role's gloriously hammy showmanship), are all rendered with charm and imagination.

The most charming creation is perhaps Munchkinland, a community of curiously shaped, thatched-roof cottages hidden among rolling meadows beautifully striped with rows of dazzlingly colored tulips. Many recent films appear to have been filmed through mud-smeared lenses, which makes Wicked's dazzling color and light appealing in and of itself.

Adapting material from Winnie Holzman's book and Schwartz's lyrics for the musical, which was based on Gregory Maguire's eponymous novel, screenwriters Holzman and Dana Fox (Cruella) stay true to the show's formula while fleshing out the plot and characters in gratifying ways. Chu also keeps the pacing quick, so there's no sense of narrative bloat.

The revised history to L. Frank Baum's iconic children's tale The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in 1900, opens on stage, with the Oz citizens celebrating the purported death of the Wicked Witch of the West – more on that in Part 2.

Glinda confirms the news, floating into Munchkinland in a bubble ("It's good to see me, isn't it?") and dressed in a glittering pink tulle ballgown. It's Tazewell's first heavenly creation in that color, and there hasn't been this much pink on a heroine since Legally Blonde.

One Munchkin wonders if it's true that Glinda and Elphaba were once friends, leading a return to the story's beginning to consider its defining question: whether a person is born bad or has wickedness foisted upon them.

A lot unfolds before the main title appears, including a summary of Elphaba's birth. Elphaba's birth, attended by her ursine nanny Dulcibear and a goat obstetrician, is met with shock. When her father, Governor Thropp (Andy Nyman), notices the baby's pea green complexion, he yells, "Take it away!" In a brilliant scene straight out of Carrie, Elphaba exhibits her instinctive abilities even as a newborn as surgical equipment fly up to the ceiling.

The governor's rejection of his daughter is exacerbated when younger sister Nessarose (played as a teenager by Marissa Bode) arrives. We subsequently find that herbal measures taken by her mother (Courtney Mae-Briggs) throughout her pregnancy to ensure Nessarose was not green resulted in her birth with paraplegia, which is the basis of Elphaba's misguided guilt.

Nessarose, not Elphaba, is enrolled at Shiz. However, the protective older sister joins her on move-in day, and when she detects a threat to her smaller brother, she unintentionally unleashes a show of ominous witchcraft. Elphaba's power is seen by Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), the renowned Dean of Sorcery Studies, who insists on enrolling her at Shiz and paying her individual tuition.

This first scene has a definite Hogwarts atmosphere, with the unusual cuts of Tazewell's gender-fluid uniforms reminiscent of a lost Thom Browne collection. Glinda's naturally assumed superiority is clear from her eye-catching entrance along the canals in a gondola filled with pink luggage. She instantly draws two chattering sycophants, Pfannee (Bowen Yang) and ShenShen (Bronwyn James), as well as the initial admiration of sweet-natured Munchkin Boq (Ethan Slater, the discovery of Broadway's SpongeBob SquarePants musical), whose emotions Glinda will willfully exploit.

Glinda and Elphaba's relationship begins on a bitter note when they are forced to share a room, and Elphaba is also shown as a viciously ridiculed outsider. In the entertaining duet "What Is This Feeling?" the two protagonists sing of their "unadulterated loathing," demonstrating screen chemistry that will expand and deepen as the characters' relationship changes.

Elphaba feels camaraderie when she discovers that amiable history professor Dr. Dillamond (a smart goat portrayed by Peter Dinklage) is one of the few animals allowed to teach. She later listens in on a discussion in Dillamond's quarters with other creatures. They explore the systematic marginalization of nonhumans throughout Australia, predicting a near future in which animals would be completely removed from positions of power, denied the ability to speak, and potentially imprisoned.

While this discriminating subplot is built into the material, the example of a minority being stigmatized, silenced, and essentially removed from society takes on unexpected resonance in light of the current election campaign and the hot-button topic of immigration. Americans on both sides of the political spectrum would most certainly perceive it differently — if they see any parallels at all.

Meanwhile, with Mme. Morrible's ostensibly benevolent direction, Elphaba begins to see her "weird quirk" as a skill rather than a disadvantage, and she begins to learn to regulate her talents. She becomes the underdog in the early phases of a romantic triangle with Glinda (their initial animosity has melted into friendliness by this time) and dreamboat student prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who shares his pleasure-seeking ethos in "Dancing Through Life." That lively number is performed in Crowley's Shiz library, which has revolving cylindrical shelves and moving stairs. But Fiyero might not be as shallow and self-centered as he appears.

Morrible introduces the notion that Elphaba's abilities could one day serve as her pass to Emerald City, while Erivo receives the first of her few hits, "The Wizard and I," a song whose title has baffled grammar geeks for more than two decades. It starts with a serious "I want" song from a girl who has never dared to want anything, and builds to a resounding declaration of self-affirmation in the big-belt conclusion. Chu expertly timed the finale to situate the exultant Elphaba on a breathtaking clifftop, evoking both fairy tales and old cinema musicals.

When Elphaba is summoned to visit the Wizard, she insists on bringing Glinda along on a sparkling clockwork-powered Emerald City express train, another Crowley showstopper. But their time there, although enhancing Elphaba's abilities, brings shattering disillusionment and drives determined action, as exemplified by Erivo's stunning performance of "Defying Gravity." That trademark song ended Act I on stage and maintains its towering place in the two-part film.

Holzman and Fox's screenplay derives lots of laughs from Ozian language quirks ("hideousity," "scandalicious," "moodified," etc.), particularly Glinda's haughty snobbery. Grande, in her greatest film role yet, embodies that quality with a liberal dusting of honey and charming comedic sensibilities. Her wobbly version of "Popular" while trying to give Elphaba a makeover is delightful. However, the script emphasizes dramatic themes of injustice, persecution, and the idea of evil as a helpful scapegoating tool.

Yang and James play a toothless imitation of adversarial duos like Flotsam and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid, which is slightly entertaining but underutilized, ultimately having little purpose. Bailey, Slater, and Bode are more effective, establishing the basis for considerable character development in Part 2 (at least in the stage musical storyline), but Yeoh and Goldblum gradually disclose the darker objectives buried under the mask of power.

But Wicked belongs to Erivo. Elphaba has always been the meatier part—in the faceoff for best actress in a musical at the 2004 Tonys, original Elphaba Idina Menzel defeated Kristin Chenoweth's Glinda—and the character's narrative has even more weight in this translation.

Perhaps this is due to Erivo's intense emotional engagement in her portrayal, which is reminiscent of her Tony-winning performance in the 2015 Broadway version of The Color Purple. Her eyes are an expressive window into the character's life of hurt and exclusion, as well as rebellious pride and wrath, often spanning all of these emotions in a single scene, song, or line reading. Her Elphaba is an underdog hero worth rooting for.