Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo Are a Perfect Movie Musical Couple: NPR

Galinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) are opposites in every way, forced to be together at Shiz University.

Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

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Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

God knows, it feels like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have been attached at the hip for most of this century, crying and banter while decked out in stunning ensembles of green, black and pink, the (un?)official colors of Evil. The press tour and behind-the-scenes gossip that accompanied Jon M. Chu’s long-awaited spectacular has been exhausting dramatically – probably to be expected for the film adaptation of a Broadway musical juggernaut, beloved by theater kids everywhere (I was one of them), and starring one of the biggest pop stars of the era.

In the end, it’s what lands on the screen that matters. And with regard to Wicked: Part 1 many things are true at once: the excellent Erivo and Grande could not have been better suited to play Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda, who goes on to become Glinda the Good Witch; the film’s themes are evergreen and relevant; and whoever made the decision to split the stage show into two separate movies deserves to be cursed with a spell from the book of Grimmerie.

Evilvery loosely based on Gregory Maguire’s The Wizard of Oz revisionist novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the Westtells the origin story of Elphaba and how she became L. Frank Baum’s emblematic villain. Shunned by her father and ostracized by her peers due to the fact that she was born with abnormally green skin, she discovers at a young age that her anger manifests uncontrollably as a magical force from within. Years later, this ability comes to Madame Morribles (Michelle Yeoh), the no-nonsense principal of Shiz University, who eagerly takes Elphaba under her wing for private tutoring in sorcery.

Two good friends, two best friends

Elphaba is assigned a room with Galinda, the bubbly, extremely vain beauty queen who is none too happy about sharing her private suite with the school’s oddball. The two clash for all the expected reasons: if Elphaba’s whole vibe is “emo-goth girl shopping at Hot Topic circa 2003,” Galinda’s is “Barbie.” Galinda is initially jealous that she doesn’t get to study with Madame Morrible herself. But soon enough they become friends (best friends even) just as Oz enters a period of social unrest.

Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, the headmistress of Shiz University.

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Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures

There’s a lot to recommend here, especially for fans of the show – the humor is punchy, Christopher Scott’s expressive choreography enhances the characterizations, and Paul Tazewell’s costume design details are perfection. But far from outstanding Evil is the central relationship between these two enemies turned friends. Erivo and Grande have the goods: both come from theater backgrounds (the former has won a Tony), but are also naturals on camera, able to bring subtlety and grandiosity as needed. Even under the green makeup and against the backdrop of some terribly underwhelming CGI aesthetics, their chemistry is undeniable, whether they’re bickering during one of the show’s highlights, “What Is This Feeling?” or find common ground during the show-stopping Act I finale “Denying Gravity.”

This is most palpable during the great Ozdust Ballroom sequence where Elphaba, once again ostracized by her classmates, defiantly responds to their laughter with dance, and Galinda, feeling empathy for possibly the first time ever, joins her. It’s both the most musical theater-y thing that could happen in this most musical theater-y of shows, and gets to the essence of the show’s enduring appeal.

A timely allegory – to a tune

Meanwhile, the show’s other central concern is striking to take in this moment. Gregory Maguire’s 1995 book is a sprawling, somber meditation on the nature of good vs. evil and what it means to resist or give in to fascist movements. Oz is a world where animals have evolved to be as intelligent as humans, with the ability to speak and live just as humans do, although they have long faced discrimination for doing so. (In the film, Elphaba’s beloved professor Dr. Dillamond is a goat voiced by Peter Dinklage.) The paternalistic, self-anointed wizard (Jeff Goldblum at his most Goldblum) is intent on stripping the animals of Oz of their autonomy and rights and using Elphaba powers to do so.

The musical, both on stage and screen, is a significantly watered-down and completely different version of Maguire’s novel. But its parallels to our real world – currently marked by calls for mass deportations, erosion of abortion rights; etc. – are still unmistakably evident to anyone who reads today’s news.

The allegories of minority persecution are made even more palpable by the fact of casting Erivo, a black woman, in the role of the Wicked Witch of the West. (To date, only one black actress has played her in a full-time stage production: Alexia Khadime, in London’s West End over a decade ago and again in the current production.) By coding the outcast-turned-political agitator as Black—her hair is in micro-braids and aside from the green makeup, Erivo’s features are fully visible – the reality of the world we live in is inescapable. “Her green skin is an outward manifestation of her twisted nature!” a character proclaims to the people of Oz at one point, inciting them to position Elphaba as the common enemy. Arguing that her skin – who she is – is reason enough to demonize her: It’s not entirely different from e.g. recent rhetoric used to target Haitian immigrants in Ohio.

Jonathan Bailey dances his way through life as Prince Fiyero as Boq (Ethan Slater) looks on.

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For all its virtues and relevance, however, it is strange that in this two hour and 41 minute adaptation of first act of the show—longer, it should be noted, than the entire stage production without intermission—little of substance was added to justify making this a two-part affair. Chu and screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox stay fairly true to the source material (which Holzman also wrote), and there are no new songs to go along with all of composer Stephen Schwartz’s originals. (Part 2 will reportedly have some new songs, which might be for the best given that Act 2’s numbers suffer compared to the stacked first half.) There are few attempts to incorporate more of Maguire’s exaggerated stories from the book, and other secondary characters like Elphaba’s younger sister Nessarose (Marissa Bode) and romantic interest Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) are no more fleshed out than they are in the show.

The result is a film that, while enjoyable and occasionally moving, ends on its cliffhanger (“Defying Gravity”), which also happens to be a cliffhanger. It is an unusual and extremely peculiar condition – both complete and incomplete at the same time. The feeling isn’t completely hideous, exactly. But it’s a little tiresome, especially since it probably means we have to expect another full year of one Evil press tour. Like its predecessor, it’s an imperfect production that has a lot of heart and brains. If only it had the guts to tell a complete story in a reasonable amount of time.