The famous broadway musical Wicked hit the box office this Thanksgiving Break and attempted to achieve a similar excitement as the buildup around the Barbie-Oppenheimer feature last summer, but was it successful?
Disclaimer: I had never seen anything Wicked related before this movie and I frankly didn’t even know much about the plot before watching it this weekend. Additionally and probably most notably, I am not a musical theater fan despite my favorite movie being La La Land. Also this article does contain spoilers. 🙂
Everyone loves the original Wizard of Oz story for different reasons. For some, it’s the story of friendship, journeying home and also finding a sense of belonging in a scary and ever changing world. For others, who take more of a film appreciation stance for the actual production itself, The Wizard of Oz served as one of the first movies to use Technicolor, allowing for color to serve as another proponent to the plot through symbolism.
Wicked was no different as it served its audience with similar themes and satisfied the color appreciation, but offered new things for people to indulge in such as the celebrity of the actors and their performances, the songs within the musical themselves, and also garnered lots of media attention due to interviews, marketing strategies and more.
“With over $300 million domestically, Wicked is now among the highest-grossing musicals of all time,” said Collider. “And because it’s only a couple of weeks into its theatrical run, this means that it has a strong chance of becoming the highest-grossing movie musical ever made.”
As of the last three years, really since COVID, the resurgence of seeing movies in the theaters has significantly increased thanks to movies such as Barbie, Oppenheimer, Inside Out 2, Wicked, and more to come. But why is Wicked one of the top grossing movies of the year?
Without further adieu, here is my review of the Wicked movie, which I went to see this past weekend.
The Movie Itself
I was really interested in seeing this movie because of the high amount of remarks several of my friends said about the acting and the production of the movie itself. However, as mentioned, I am not a huge musical fan and the thought of sitting through a three hour movie of purely singing was not what I wanted to do during my Thanksgiving break so I waited until the urge to watch it was strong enough.
And let me say, the movie delivered and went above and beyond my expectations.
I had seen stills of the movie on social media as people criticized the lack of pop in color, especially in comparison to the original Wizard of Oz movie.
( https://x.com/jofoca/status/1867361966936994284?s=46 )
As a response to the criticism he received, the director of Wicked, Jon M. Chu said, “I mean, there’s color all over it. I think what we wanted to do was immerse people into Oz, to make it a real place. Because if it was a fake place, if it was a dream in someone’s mind, then the real relationships and the stakes that these two girls are going through wouldn’t feel real.”
As I watched, I totally forgot about the comments and felt like I left with a huge appreciation for the production of the movie itself and the way it used color throughout. Especially with the contrast of pinks and greens to represent the two main leads (Elphaba as played by Cynthia Erivo and Glinda played by Ariana Grande), I thought the movie did a great job showing the way the two colors worked together and it added so much to the overall plot of the movie.
And despite having a runtime of 2 hours and 40 minutes, I can tell you that it definitely flew by. I was expecting a lot of background and plot buildup but the movie wasted no time at all and every scene was strong and well produced without any lack in details.
I definitely had some favorite moments in the movie and personally enjoyed the growing tension between Glinda and Elphaba as their “loathing” for each other grew stronger until finally giving up and becoming best friends. Their relationship was complex but gravitating and made it so fun to follow along in their journey to decide how they really, truly felt about each other.
But while the story follows themes of friendship like the original Wizard of Oz, it also brought to light feelings of isolation, being misunderstood and treated poorly due to differences from the status quo.
As further analysis, I want to address how good “Glinda the good” really is. We are introduced to Glinda’s character right away in the movie as the Wicked Witch of the West is pronounced dead but as the movie progresses, I feel like I am not the only one to see through Glinda’s self-serving facade that comes across as genuine and kind, looking out for others. I’m not sure if that is a “duh” reaction to the Part 1 of the Wicked movie, but I found myself siding with Elphaba most of the movie who seemed to always catch the short end of the stick, never provoking some of the chaos she got into but rather was forced into it unwillingly.
This quote from Time Magazine sums up this character dynamic best: “Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West—is built around the idea that Elphaba wasn’t born bad, but was merely forced into making decisions that set her on a path different from that of the insufferable goody-two-shoes Glinda, her enemy turned frenemy turned friend. The story’s subtext—or, rather, its glaring bold type—is that we’re all shaped by our choices, which are at least partly determined by our response to how others treat us.”
Throughout the movie, I also took note when I felt undertones of political allegories and even some commentary on racism. I don’t want to assume that this was intentional and that the play was written to represent the divisiveness in how people treat someone who is born naturally different from the rest but upon reading other reviews of the movie, I recognized that I wasn’t the only one to feel this way.
The commentary might have been more than some were expecting out of the blockbuster musical, but for some of us who recognized its undertones, it introduced a deeper insight into the topics I discussed above that makes me excited to see how they will be built upon or resolved in the Part Two of the movie.
For further commentary and a dissertation on the politics within Wicked, go no further than reading this insightful review: The Politics Of ‘Wicked’, Explained, by ELLE.
The Acting & Music
Next, I want to get into the acting and the true musical aspects of the movie.
I will admit, coming into the movie, I was a little hesitant about Ariana Grade taking up the role of Glinda in a musical, but she also surpassed all expectations I could have had for her performance. She handled the singing and necessary changes in her voice – and acting — with such impressive professionalism and brought silence to all those who doubted her.
Additionally, I had not known much about Cynthia Erivo prior to this movie but several times found myself tearing up, not because of the plot in particular but rather, her ability to give her absolute all into her role as Elphaba, the misunderstood. Her performance of “Defying Gravity” lived up to the expectations that social media had placed on her and I thought her and Grande had a convincing chemistry that excites you for the second part of the movie.
Both delivered in their leading roles, but I simply remained focused on the performance of Johnathan Bailey in his role as Prince Fiyero. His acting in Bridgerton captured the hearts of fans all over and his acting as the sensitive, self-absorbing, carefree Prince Fiyero was just another example of what he is capable of. I truly believe his career will only catapult from here.
As if the list of A-list performers wasn’t enough to convince you how good this movie was, let me list a few more names involved in the movie: Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, and Bowen Yang.
I thoroughly enjoyed their performances and thought the chemistry between the crew made it one of the best movies I have ever seen, and I’m a pretty harsh and tough to please movie critic.
And while I said I don’t love musicals, I didn’t think the movie overdid it with songs and felt the ones that stood out to me the most were because of the high amount of production poured into it such as “Defying Gravity” and “Dancing Through Life” which by the way have been stuck in my head for DAYS.
Abigail Cortez, ‘26, said her main reasoning for going to see Wicked was because it was all over her social media. She added, “ I’ve never seen the musical but wanted to watch it because I couldn’t go on any social media without seeing it. Plus I feel like there was a lot of hype around it before the release. My biggest take away was that they were amazing singers. I saw somewhere that they sang live through the whole movie so thought that was pretty cool.“
Another APU student, Eliana Saunders, chose to see Wicked because she was familiar with its story and was looking forward to the production of the movie itself. She felt like it was healthily advertised and said Ariana Grande surprised her the most through her acting which Saunders admittedly said she had little expectations for in her role as Glinda.
The songs are catchy, theatrical, but also so fun to follow along and you can see true storytelling come to life through the use of music not in spite of it.
The Buzz around Wicked. For the better or worse?
I wanted to make sure I touched on the fact that Wicked came out on the same weekend as Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II, which featured Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal. As fans recognized this, they started to wonder if this was a similar marketing ploy as Barben-heimer was last summer.
But the true effectiveness in the Barbenheimer double feature lay within the stark differences between the two films, the girlhood and feminist movement of one and the dark reality of war and destruction of the other. While Wicked and Gladiator II did show some differences between the two movies, both were marketed as their own separate eras.
Fans of the two movies on social media called this double feature “Glicked” as a play on the previous “Barbenheimer” phenomenon. Yet, its success was not as prominent as that of last summer because the actors did not lean into it as much as Margot Robbie and Cillian Murphy did.
It was not until after the release of the movies that Variety released their one-on-one interview between Ariana Grande and Paul Mascal in which the two actors discussed the “Glicked” phenomenon which in my opinion did not have much steam.
However, I do feel like the marketing around Wicked was strong as it stretched to beauty lines, Stanley cups, and even inspired people to dress up in either green or pink to express their excitement for the movie. Gladiator on the other hand, did not have as much build up into its movie which is why it maye need to play into the “Glicked” idea more than Wicked needed it for its own success.
While “Glicked” never really took off, Wicked garnered a lot more attention for the movie through the use of social media. While the movie was filming, there were rumors about Grande and Slater beginning a love affair which brought a lot of attention to the movie itself, however, it seemed more damaging to the actors’ images than beneficial to the movie. Since filming the movie and its release, Grande released her latest album, Eternal Sunshine, which touched on the media getting involved in her personal life and painting her to be a victim and someone she is not.
Additionally, Erivo and Grande participated in several interviews recently as a part of their press tour in order to promote their movie and offer new insight and secrets from the filming of the movie itself. However, many people said the interviews and the amount of emotion expressed by the actresses ended up turning people away from the movie rather than bringing more of an interest to it. Most notably, their interview about “holding space” for the “Defying Gravity” song went absolutely viral as it showcased a combined mix of confusion but yet a lot of emotion and empathy between the two actresses and interviewer.
But while the movie did great in the box office, clearly, it wasn’t because of the interviews leading up to it, or the space that people were holding for it, but truly I believe it was a cumulation of the high profile actors involved in the movie and the production itself and its execution.
Abby Conn, ‘25, said her reasoning for seeing the movie was because she saw the show live on Broadway and said she has been obsessed ever since. She shared that her biggest takeaway is the attention to detail that was put into the movie. “It is so apparent when you watch the film and they provided a lot more backstory that you don’t get in the musical which unveils new hidden meanings to the story.”
Riley Burns, ‘25, who has seen the movie twice, said, “The first hour at the school was slow but once they got to the emerald city things really picked up. The music also moved the story along well and did not feel unnecessary. It met and exceeded all of my expectations and I was even singing popular the second I left the theater.”
He added that “people should absolutely watch it if they are looking for a light hearted movie that still has serious moments that really pull on your heart strings. You can’t help but get captivated and drawn into the world and I would be surprised if you leave the theater not wanting to know what happens next.”
Fans can look forward to Part 2 of Wicked coming out next fall as all the current characters will reprise their roles.