“Wicked: For Good” was at a disadvantage from the start.
As the sequel to last year’s hit “Wicked” and an adaptation of the Broadway show’s shorter second act, it has blander material to work with: There’s nothing as touching as the Ozdust Ballroom dance scene, or as delightful as “Popular,” or as exhilarating as our green-skinned heroine Elphaba belting out “Defying Gravity.”
Director Jon M. Chu must have known this on some level. For the sequel, he’s gone out of his way to fluff up the narrative for the denouement, add new songs, invent backstory, and give his actors more emotionally tender scenes to chew on.
The problem is that in doing so, he focused too much of his attention on one character: Ariana Grande’s Glinda.
Chu isn’t hiding the fact that he was so inspired by Grande’s performance that he reshaped the sequel in her image, inserting her into musical numbers where she hadn’t existed before and even adding more backstory scenes for her character in reshoots. In Chu’s vision, Glinda is the emotional core.
“In a weird way, she took the reins and I had to follow her and just capture it as much as I could,” he told The New York Times.
But for all Chu’s talk of how Grande naturally drew the spotlight, the movie’s fixation on the Good Witch feels structurally ham-handed and thematically misguided.
Grande’s comedic chops are underused, while her dramatic chops are overused
Grande won over theater nerds and critics alike with her finely tuned operatic vocals and knack for physical comedy in 2024’s “Wicked.”
In “Wicked: For Good,” Grande still shines brightest while singing and cracking jokes. In her best scenes — as when Glinda tests her vehicular bubble for the first time, or when she tries to fist-fight Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) in Munchkinland — she brings color and lightness to the bleaker turns of Act II, which include glimpses of animal abuse and low-grade body horror. (Let’s just say Dorothy’s friends are not as whimsically resigned to their strange fates as they are in “The Wizard of Oz.”)
The problem is that “Wicked: For Good” is not satisfied with using Grande as comedic relief or, more necessarily, as a foil to Erivo’s ethical outlaw. Instead, in repeated attempts to justify Glinda’s selfishness as its own kind of bravery, it forces Grande into the foreground.
The movie spends a lot of time lingering on close-up shots of Grande’s tear-stained face. It adds doting flashbacks to Glinda’s childhood (she was showered with love and expensive gifts, but still yearned for magic most of all, so it’s meant to be tragic, I guess?), and gives her a new solo, “The Girl in the Bubble,” the film’s penultimate musical number.
The timing suggests that “The Girl in the Bubble” is intended to be the film’s introspective centerpiece, the tearjerker that sells Glinda’s heroic arc: “All that’s required to live in a dream is endlessly closing your eyes,” she sings mournfully. Of course, this is the same revelation Glinda has been having (and then cyclically repressing) for nearly five hours’ worth of screen time; she just had yet to say it out loud.
There’s no question that Grande is a capable balladeer, and she delivers the song as convincingly as she can. Nevertheless, “The Girl in the Bubble” is a lifeless tune — I couldn’t hum a single bar after leaving the movie theater — not to mention that it has the misfortune of following Erivo’s hair-raising rendition of “No Good Deed,” the film’s actual centerpiece, when Elphaba collapses under the weight of her own reputation and explodes like a supernova.
Erivo is the true star of ‘Wicked: For Good’
Plenty of reviewers have lavished praise on Grande’s performance. “A radiant Ariana Grande owns the continuation of Jon M. Chu’s musical marathon,” goes The Hollywood Reporter’s headline, while Variety proclaims, “It’s Ariana Grande’s time to shine.” Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri noted how the film is “bending toward her every chance it gets.”
It’s not that reviewers are wrong about Grande’s impressive debut as a dramatic actor. It’s that she never should have been positioned as the film’s focal point to begin with.
“Wicked” is ultimately Elphaba’s story, and both halves of the adaptation rightfully belong to Erivo. Her ability to transition from naive schoolgirl in part one to an indignant, embodied sorceress in part two — without losing the sensitive heart that makes Elphaba so compelling — is the feat that reviewers should be applauding. In “Wicked: For Good,” she even portrays that duality within a single sequence, veering from righteous fury to cautious optimism and back again, all while Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard bounces around the screen singing “Wonderful.”
Like Grande, Erivo is also given a new solo. Unlike “The Girl in the Bubble,” which rehashes what we already know about Glinda’s inner turmoil, “No Place Like Home” is a memorable addition that adds depth and realism to Elphaba’s motivations.
“No Place Like Home” explores Elphaba’s determination to fight for a future she believes in, despite being ostracized from birth. “Why do I love this place,” she wonders aloud, “that’s never loved me?” She realizes that Oz is her home, and it’s more than just a scrap of land that can be swapped out for any other. “It’s a promise, an idea,” she sings, “And I want to help make it come true.” She faces a complicated, heartbreaking reality that many will find relatable — especially in an era of militarized deportations and deflated American Dreams.
Glinda, who’s always been loved by her fellow Ozians, is rewarded handsomely by the film’s end. She keeps her privilege, her popularity, and her pink gowns. (That’s not a spoiler — we see this play out in the very first scene of “Wicked,” while the Munchkins are celebrating Elphaba’s downfall.) But “Wicked: For Good” can’t help but go even further than its source material, giving Glinda one more significant reward in the film’s final minutes, as one last reminder that she’s the only witch left to root for.
All these additions make Glinda’s arc in “Wicked: For Good” feel like a betrayal of the story’s key themes, which warn us not to worship those in power, especially if their stories seem too good to be true.
Or perhaps Glinda being heralded as the savior of Oz — and Grande as the heart of this film — brings the story full circle. As the Wizard prophetically tells Elphaba, an appealing brand is easier to sell than reality.
“Wicked: For Good” is in theaters now.
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