(courtesy IMP Awards)
When your parting gift to audiences at the conclusion of the first part of Wicked is the delivery of the scene stealing, future defining showstopper song “Defying Gravity”, where colours are nailed to the flag (no prizes for guessing which ones) and entreaties are made by both effects, none of which are heeded, at least not immediately, it makes sense that the sequel, Wicked: For Good spends much of its run time living out the potential truth of those lyrics.
This is a newly-minted second half, which comes with two new songs, “No Place Like Home” and “The Girl in the Bubble” for Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo in soaring form, literally and vocally) aka the propaganda convenient Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good (Ariana Grande deftly diving between glossy and distressed), seeming collaborator to an authoritarian regime, which knows that, with two diametrically opposed positions, that there is nowhere to go but intensely emotional and probingly dark.
And so, the creation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman – the latter is responsible for the screenplay with Dana Fox – which is once again masterfully directed by Jon M. Chu duly follows suit, taking us into a titanic tug of war between two competing positions which, it turns out, for the two key players aren’t quite so far apart after all.
One thing established time and time again in this adaptation of a musical, which is in turn a music-a-fying adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked, is that no matter how the inept but amusing Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) set the scene, and the latter most particularly works with the fiendish enthusiasm of a propaganda chief to make reality a malleable and scarcely true commodity, there exists a bond between forever friends Glinda and Elphaba that no narrowly focused regime can schism apart.
Theirs is a bond so fierce, so undying and possessed of such a killer tune in the heartstopping, emotionally muscular beauty of “For Good”, from which the second half naturally takes its time and its very heart and soul, that it cannot be easily wrenched apart, and indeed, and there are no spoilers here, it is not throughout the beautifully executed running time of almost 2 1/2 hours.
This half of the story, which flags just a little in the first third with the absence of the epic tunes that fill the first half of the musical like the yellow bricks of a certain road, is about a grand and prevailing love affair between two vastly different people who found in each other the missing parts of their lives.
Elphaba may be waging a seemingly fruitless campaign against the cruelties of the Madame Morrible regime, for she is the corrosive beating heart of the Emerald City’s powers-that-be, delaying construction of the road upon which we do indeed see Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man (these two have surprisingly inventive origin stories that come with emotional whammies all their own), and Glinda may be going along with the role as the smiling face of the Wizard’s desperate grab for power and relevancy and status, but thse two remain friends and Wicked: For Good brings that to the fore in a story that is as heartfelt as it is dark.
For all of this darkness however and it is there not simply in the realpolitik machinations of a regime constantly, and often murderously, reshaping the facts on the ground for its own terrible ends, but in the lives of many of its characters, Wicked: For Good is a story where love reigns supreme, locked in a battle for the hearts and minds of those in its thrall.
Erivo and Grande bring this titanically arresting battle to the screen with both a blockbuster big presence, evident in the sweeping cinematography which effortlessly hops between sprawling, dreamily coloured set pieces and darker, more troubling moments, and a raw, deeply affecting emotional intimacy that reaches into your very soul at times and twists hearts that, unlike one character, don’t grow smaller but which swell as the story climbs and climbs to a crescendo which doesn’t go, rather wonderfully, quite where you think it will.
Full of its own inventive imagination and a deep appreciate for the nuance of relationships and the propensity of people to make awful decisions for the most needy and driving of reasons, Wicked: For Good plays around with the stage musical to a dizzyingly pleasing degree, weaving in elements of its own story and that of the classic Wizard of Oz to emphatically impressive degree.
So impressive does Wicked: For Good become, as it weaves and builds, soars and cleverly brings together incisive social and political commentary and the swirling, often contradictory matters of the heart, that you are never not involved to a soul stilling and stirring degree (both magically exist, suspended, in the same magical music-filled moments), living out this grand love story of two forever friends in every whispered lyric and hushed note.
Darker it may be, but this half of the story knows that to bring things to a satisfying conclusion, and the ending well and truly justifies the musically punctuated means, it must delve deep and consistently so into what happens when two people nail their colours to the masts and have no choice but to follow through.
Elphaba is the obviously stronger of the two in this regard at first but Glinda comes to the fore too, realising that while acclaim and ego-stroking are deeply tempting for a woman who simply wanted to be magically loved, that perhaps there is a greater love to be had here, one not borne of political expediency and grimy necessity but of a friendship rich and deep and true which survives even the machinations of a regime which cannot survive love of this kind.
Watching Wicked: For Good is enthralling in ways that go well beyond dazzling the eyes and enrapturing the soul, and it does that with effortless ease, employing music, deftly used dialogue and the raw honesty of the human condition, evident even in so magical a setting, to tell a story which is, at its heart, about two people who found each other, grew to know and love each other as the most enduring of friends and who go on to reaffirm that in ways which change not only their destinies but those of everyone in Oz.
And maybe, you suspect, or perhaps you know, the audience too …