Wicked

★★★★

I can’t remember a time from before I loved “Wicked.” I was three years-old when the show debuted, and the Broadway cast album completely soundtracked my childhood. I knew all the words to all the songs before I even really knew what I was listening to, and I vividly remember the little performances I would do with my sister and our friends as kids, piecing together what plot we could gather from the lyrics. As an adult, I’m struck by how much of my identity is tied to this show. My love of theatre, of musicals, to an extent my love of storytelling and consequently my love of film, can all in some respects be tied back to “Wicked.” There is arguably no other piece of art, of any medium, that has informed more of who I am than this show.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a film adaptation. In fairness, nothing could live up to the astronomical expectations I had unwittingly set for it, and yet, I was bound to love practically any cinematic interpretation of my favourite show. Jon M. Chu’s film occupies both spaces simultaneously. I have notes, I have issues…but I also cried the entire time.

“Wicked,” technically titled on-screen with a “Part One” that fades in like a punchline, is exactly the exuberant movie musical spectacle I always dreamed it would be. From the propulsive overture that flies us from an ominous puddle of water in the castle of the Wicked Witch of the West to a vibrant celebration in the colourful fields of Munchkinland, I knew we were in good hands. Jon M. Chu, whose “In the Heights” adaptation remains criminally under-appreciated, is so clearly as in love with the source material as anyone watching in the theatre, and that reverence seeps into every frame. His film is joyful, exhilarating movie magic, capturing that indefinable spark that makes “Wicked” such a cultural touchstone with an earnest sincerity that holds strong even when the film occasionally stumbles.

That buoyant, infectious energy is most readily apparent in the film’s musical numbers. Wonderfully staged, with choreography that leaps off the screen and thrilling use of visual movement, this is really what you see the “Wicked” movie for. I have always envisioned “What is This Feeling?” employing split-screen, so it was a delight to see Chu take the same route, before exploding the number into a montage of loathing across the Shiz University campus. Fan-favourite “Popular” punctuates its humour with fun stylistic flourishes, and paints the entire frame a rich pink hue for its home-stretch. A song stretched into a twenty-minute sequence, “Dancing Through Life” incorporates the set design of the Shiz library into its thrilling choreography, and for “One Short Day” in the Emerald City, Chu’s sweeping steadycam captures the city with the same wonder as his characters. And then, of course, “Defying Gravity” goes completely berserk.

Grounding the spectacle is Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, whose performances are the only element of the entire film that I have absolutely zero notes for. They are both jaw-dropping. Erivo’s Elphaba is heartbreaking, funny, warm and deeply sympathetic. She possesses the broad theatricality of the character’s stage origin while inhabiting her on a subtler register for the silver screen, and as the film’s north star she is an arresting force of nature. Vocally, she crushes it everywhere, but my theatre literally burst into deafening applause at the close of her outstanding “The Wizard and I.” Meanwhile, Ariana Grande gives the supporting actress performance of the year as Galinda. Her delightful comedic timing and ditzy superficiality is wonderfully entertaining, before it melts into something truly moving. She had me hooked from the grief she hides under the outward joy of “No One Mourns the Wicked.”

From that opening number, Chu and production designer Nathan Crowly craft an Oz that is as richly detailed as it is wholly immersive. Featuring some of the most lavish sets I have seen in a contemporary movie musical of this size, “Wicked” is a marvel of craftsmanship and scale, helped by Paul Tazewell’s excellent costuming. But if I were either of them, I’d feel more than a little shortchanged by cinematographer Alice Brooks.

The world of “Wicked” may be vibrant, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at it. A backlit aesthetic that shines a hazy glare across the frame and washes out all contrast and depth, Brooks’ images are bland at best, and artistically inept at worst, rendering Oz as a collection of beiges and greys, muting the saturation of what are surely quite colourful characters and environments. Its flat, commercial cinematography, the result of poor lighting and completely inexpressive colouring, makes for a film mostly unable to evoke anything visually. Its inconsistent CGI environments and characters are no help either. For an elaborate fantasy musical, exaggerated stylistic panache should be expected. For “Wicked,” this is inexcusable.

A similarly tough pill to swallow: this first half of the “Wicked” story runs, at over two and a half hours, longer than the runtime of the entire Broadway production. And you can feel it. With the film’s midpoint coming narratively at the end of the whole story’s first act, the film can feel sluggish getting to that first major turning point.

But ultimately, to my surprise, the film justifies the broader decision to split the story in half. The depth Chu adds to these characters and their relationships, the breathing room he allows them, is powerfully effective and one of the film’s greatest strengths. Where theatre audiences are trained to absorb and accept emotion on a larger, amplified scale, a cinematic endeavour like this asks for a nuance that outpaces the tempo of live performance. Particularly for this show, one famously criticized for some rushed narrative beats — especially in Act Two —a longer runtime is not only welcomed, but necessary for what Chu aims to achieve here.

Nowhere is this more relevant than the sequence at the Ozdust Ballroom. A crucial moment in the story of Elphaba and Galinda, Chu’s film handles it with considered delicacy, a slower pace and understated subtlety, and it is breathtaking. One of the best directed scenes of the entire year, with Erivo and Grande’s best performances in the film, this scene is the beating heart of the story, opening the flood gates for this already misty-eyed reviewer.

And that’s really why “Wicked” soars. It wears its heart on its sleeve, unashamedly. Its warmth and completely un-cynical sentimentality carry it far, and above all else, it is abundantly clear how much love there is for this story and these characters both in front of and behind the camera. Even as it stumbles, Chu’s film is electrifying and dazzling, an ambitious behemoth of a blockbuster musical that fulfills practically every expectation one can have for it.

There is a part of me that truly would have been happy with nearly any adaptation of “Wicked,” and a part of me still unsatisfied that the long-awaited film is not pure perfection. But sitting in that theatre, thinking of the journey I’ve been on with the show, I was so overcome with emotion at nearly every moment that everything just faded away. Fiyero letting loose on the students of Shiz; the Wizard tap-dancing into “A Sentimental Man”; Nessa giddily telling her sister about going to the Ozdust with Boq; the final euphoric moments of “Defying Gravity.” This show has meant everything to me, and feeling the passion behind this adaptation come through in every scene…I do believe I have been changed for good.