With a real – and lasting – triumph since its premiere on Broadway in 2003, the musical Wicked was supposed to be the subject of a film adaptation for… almost as long. The expected stars followed one another, as did the directors, and it ultimately took twenty years for the popular production to be brought to the big screen. For the record, we are witnessing in Wicked (VF) to the young years of Elphaba and Glinda, the future wicked witch of the West and good fairy of the North crossed in The Wizard of Oz (The Wizard of Oz), novel by L. Frank Baum and film by Victor Fleming. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are in great shape, and very vocal, in what turns out to be an opulent, but slightly boring, transposition.
In this regard, you should know that, from a show lasting 2 hours 45 minutes with intermission (which came to Montreal in 2012), we decided to make two feature films, the first of which alone lasts 2 hours 40 minutes. So this film covers the first act of the show, while Wicked: Part Twowhich should be released in exactly a year, will focus on the second, more fertile in twists and turns. However, we will have to see if stretching out the action in this way will dissipate any trepidation.
Because in view of this first opus, it may be argued that the decision to split the material into two films was taken for artistic reasons, it seems obvious that what prevailed on the studio’s side was the prospect of making two times more money.
The prologue set in the “present”, just after little Dorothy had melted the Wicked Witch of the West, is representative. In that, visually, it is spectacular, musically, it is catchy, but, narratively, it lacks rigor.
It is during the celebrations surrounding the death of Elphaba, a hated figure, that the good fairy of the North, Glinda, remembers her entry into Shiz University, where she aspired to become a powerful magician. There, she met Elphaba, ostracized since her birth because of the green color of her skin.
However, unlike Glinda, Elphaba already has powerful gifts that she cannot control…
Friendship after enmity
At first enemies, the two young women will become friends. In this revisionist narrative, Elphaba is benevolent: it is the people she meets who take it for granted that she is malicious because of her different appearance.
Also “different”, the talking animals, once an important part of the teaching staff, are ostracized from society and held responsible for all the misfortunes of the inhabitants of the land of Oz… All this aspect relating to the sociopolitical metaphor, present in the show (and in the Gregory Maguire novel from which it originated), is only superficially covered, despite the increased length.
Besides, the extra time spent at school quickly gets boring: we magnify each development, but, in reality, not much happens. There is the rivalry then the complicity between Elphaba and Glinda, followed by the upheavals caused by the arrival of Fiyero, an epicurean prince, but charming nonetheless…
If the evolution of the relationship between the two heroines is interesting, everything concerning the hunk is much less so. Faced with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey struggles to win. And then, it takes a little while to get used to these thirty-something performers playing very young people aged ten, even fifteen years younger in Bailey’s case. On stage, it’s hardly noticeable, but in close-up… Beware of the syndrome Watatatow.
In support, Michelle Yeoh, aka Madame Morrible, suffers from an under-written score. Coming on the scene late, Jeff Goldblum is on the other hand tasty in Wizard of Oz.
The money is on the screen
Director of the romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asian and musical drama In the Heights (Where we come from), another adaptation of a Broadway show, Jon M. Chu knows how to film choreography. He also had a generous budget: 145 million US dollars. The money is on the screen, and the whole thing is quite elegant (the arrival of the train!).
We will particularly appreciate the preponderance of physical sets, constructed, rather than digital, at Shiz University as much as in the Emerald City (where a pleasant surprise awaits fans of the original show).
As on the boards, the big piece of bravery is the tube Defying Gravitywhich closes the first act. Cynthia Erivo then has nothing to envy of Idina Menzel, the original Elphaba. At this moment we feel a real thrill, the trouble being that we should have gotten to this point long before. Unlike Elphaba, who flies away during this emblematic singing number, the film never manages to really take off.
The movie Wicked hits theaters November 22
