By: Jack Miller
Everyone told me I was going to cry.
Of course I didn’t believe them. It is a movie about a green woman flying around on a broomstick singing show tunes to her insufferable, “pinkalicious” roommate. There could not be a single thing in this movie that would move me beyond a cursory chuckle.
Or so I thought.
Or so the culture had taught me to think.
Musical theater is a joke in almost every social sphere. Even musical theater nerds are embarrassed to admit their allegiance to the stage lights and thunderous applause. But those in the theater have always been trailblazers when it comes to tackling difficult, emotional source material. Something about the unique connection forged in the uneasy anticipation of darkness, the intimacy of anonymity, allows for the exploration and probing of the deepest guilts and vulnerabilities of the human race. Racism, violence, prejudice, melancholy. For every Music Man, there’s a Parade just around the corner. But anyone outside the theater community is familiar with only one side of the art form—the annoying one.
So, like many, I entered the buzzing theater with subterranean expectations. By the end of the movie, I was desperately trying to come up for air.
Like most acclaimed films, Wicked started as a book.
Gregory Maguire, the author of the 1995 novel, spoke to his inspiration in an interview with the BBC. During a rewatch of the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, Maguire became fixated on the Wicked Witch of the West, a staple of amorphous evil. He wanted to understand this character who was utterly unlovable. Understand the mystery of wickedness. The plot for his origin story came to him during the first scene in Munchkinland when the witch and Glinda have a moment of confrontation. “I thought to myself, ‘They know each other…They went to school together!’” The rest is pop culture history.
Wicked has had a Mean Girls trajectory. Book to movie (almost) to musical to movie again. Watching the new film, it is clear that this musical spectacle was meant to exist on screen. If it had not been for licensing disagreements with Universal Pictures, composer Stephen Schwartz and producer Marc Platt would’ve projected Wicked onto the Silver Screen over two decades ago. Thankfully, director Jon M. Chu finally brought their vision to life. Directing In The Heights in 2021, Chu is musical theater royalty and, according to fans, the only director authorized to make movie musicals anymore. His vision and care for the media shines through and has often landed him universal acclaim. This awards season is no different, winning Best Director at the Critics Choice Awards on Feb. 7. While being snubbed an Oscar nod, the movie as a whole received ten nominations, making it the second most nominated film at the ceremony this year.
Straying slightly from the Broadway musical and astronomically from the original novel, Wicked follows the story of Elphaba, an outsider because of her inexplicably green skin, and G(a)linda, a popular girl who is accustomed to getting exactly what she wants. After being partnered as roommates at Shiz University, they must learn to coexist while rumors of something sinister stir. It is a story that tackles prejudice and the power of misinformation, topics that strike a chord during this turbulent period. On the surface, it is a movie about learning to love yourself, advocating for your needs, and finding your place in this world. The not-so-subtle subtext goes a little something like this:
No one mourns the wicked.
Even if musical theater is not your thing, or a two-and-a-half hour movie makes you squeamish, everyone should see this film. Does it lean on nostalgia from the original? Sure. Does it hold its own, contribute something to the narrative, and say something about our society? Absolutely. As an intellectually curious, active participant in the stupefying journey of being a human, anyone can see that this is one of the best kinds of movies: it makes us more empathetic, more reflective, and more willing, more eager and compelled, to seek the truth.
In short, I cried.
Twice.
Comments