Grande brings a lunatic to Glinda who makes the character. She applies her operatic vibrato to the most ridiculous lyrics and dominates the screen with all the aura you’d expect from a global pop star. There is an effervescence to her performance and she carries herself with elegance and eccentricity all at once. It never detracts from the more emotional performances – especially when the film’s mood changes dramatically in the third act – and she never overpowers Erivo. The two sync as if they were born to do so, and their genuine connection heightens the emotional stakes in the final minutes of the film. (This is where we should note that Wicked only covers the first act of the musical: Part II, and everything after the anthemic “Defying Gravity” will hit theaters next year.)

The Erivo is reserved but never recedes into the background, where the Grande is boisterous without ever taking up too much space. Wicked only works if your Elphaba and Glinda strike that delicate balance, and it’s immediately clear in their first scene together that Chu and company certainly knew that. Their vocals are unsurprisingly incredible, but it’s the quiet moments they share that hold just as much weight. Honestly, it’s hard to be coherent about how very these two made me feel. But I can say that I began and finished the film 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 just wasn’t prepared for it how good. Snippets of her rendition of “Defying Gravity” have leaked here and there, but nothing compares to hearing it in the theater for the first time. It is ravishing, a hymn at 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 all it stands for as a rallying cry in a time of increasing bigotry targeting women, queer people, trans people and people of color. That’s not to say that a knockout performance from Erivo will save us, but there’s the slightest comfort in seeing her deliver the song like a roar, giving us an Elphaba who will accept the villain’s moves if it means do the good, moral. .

Not everything works visually in Wicked. The animal characters fall into a sort of CGI trap that comes from the same uncanny valley as the characters in Disney’s “live-action” remakes of The Jungle Book and The Lion King. On stage are characters such as the professorial goat Dr. Dillamond (Peter Dinklage) dressed as human-animal hybrids – including the flying monkeys that are as unsettling now as they were when they terrorized Dorothy and friends in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz – portrays the Wizard’s true plans are even more terrible. 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 oddly washed out in an instant. The Shiz farm falls victim to this – beautiful, but not quite the colorful fantasy one would expect from an Ozian university. For all its strengths, “Dancing Through Life” also suffers from this. The track is made up of two separate halves: at Shiz and in a club called Oz Dust Ballroom. In, one imagines, purposeful contrast to the intensely saturated Oz Dust, the Shiz library is much more subdued. But there are moments when characters, Grande and her pink pastels, blend into their surroundings in a way that doesn’t seem all that deliberate. There is a little too much light from the windows, not quite enough contrast in the set. However, Emerald City does not have this problem, nor does it have specific areas of Shiz like Glinda and Elphaba’s bedroom or Headmistress Madame Morrible’s office.

Aside from these relatively minor flaws, Wicked is a really faithful adaptation of a beloved musical, and the film has a few surprises up its sleeve (including a special cameo that had my audience cheering). It’s a long film, clocking in at around two hours and forty minutes, but it never drags. Holzman’s book (which she adapted for the screen with Cruella co-writer Dana Fox) is just as powerful in the hands of this cast, and mercifully Chu Schwartz’s brilliant music and lyrics do justice. The sound mix means the cleverly constructed puns in his words come through clearly, never too overpowered by orchestration or muddled under massive musical numbers. The actors’ voices are crisp, their emotions hit. It’s clear that Chu has taken great care to honor Wicked, and as a longtime fan, I’m grateful that he did. Given how markedly the mood changes in the second act of the stage show – which we see a bit of here – I wonder how he will follow up.

However, Grande and Erivo are the ones I keep coming back to. They’re a Glinda and Elphaba I’ll continue to think about, and I already know Erivo’s “Defying Gravity” will be on my rotation as often as Menzel’s. Not to be cliche, but if Wicked is the sun, I’m the comet pulled from orbit, and watching this adaptation has definitely changed me forever.