Cynthia Erivo is spellbinding in the first chapter of John M. Chu's two-part Wicked movie
"Are people born wicked or do we have wickedness thrust upon us?" That’s the very timely question Glinda/Galinda, the Good Witch of the North, asks at the outset of this fabulous film adaptation of the long-running and much loved Wicked stage show smash hit.
Legions of fans will know this is the origins story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the North, who put the frighteners on poor old Dorothy and Toto in the 1939 landmark movie classic The Wizard of Oz before being doused to death with a bucket of water.
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Watch our interview with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo
The original movie was a genuinely eerie affair (who hasn’t had childhood nightmares about those shrieking flying monkeys? Heck, I still do) but director John M. Chu’s glossy prequel is more of a coming of age story.
These are big pointy red shoes to fill and happily a stellar cast carries the always tricky stage to big screen adaptation to another level entirely. It’s vivid, funny and occasionally like being dropped in a field of trippy poppies.
Pop uberstar Ariana Grande plays Glinda/Galinda Upland as a conniving Pollyanna opposite triple threat talent Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba Thropp, the green-skinned girl who grows up to be very, very bad after she is disowned by her own father and just about everyone else besides her nanny and wheelchair-bound little sister just because she is in a racial minority of one.
The two future witches and mortal enemies first meet when they enrol at Shiz, Oz’s Hogwarts-like university for terribly gifted children. It’s hate at first sight. The pair are forced to share a room together and engage in a war of wills set against a kind of Harry Potter meets Mean Girls meets High School The Musical mash-up.
Grande and Erivo are a great pairing on screen. Both have the vocal chops to carry off the frankly so-so songs and Grande reveals some pretty good comic timing but it’s the magnetic Erivo who truly owns Wicked with her cool and controlled performance.
She spends her time in sad isolation in Shiz, her defences up against the constant ridicule and bullying as her every kind gesture is misunderstood and punished. However, when, despite themselves, she and Glinda finally bond in a strange silent dance routine at a forbidden nightclub, it is one of Wicked’s most, well, bewitching moments.
Elphaba hates her as yet untapped powers as a sorceress but she is noticed by the imperious Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), the principal of Shiz, who sees something in the young outcast and becomes her mentor.
As college roomies Glinda and Elphaba begin their doomed friendship, something far darker is happening in the mythical land of Oz. This is a place where animals can talk and the most learned of them all is Doctor Dillamond, a goat who teaches history. When he uncovers a conspiracy to silence him and his kind and is then fired from his job, an enraged Elphaba promises him that she will inform the Wizard of Oz and put a halt to this march of fascism.
Apart from Erivo’s possibly Oscar-bound performance, the best thing here is the sleek mechanical Mallard train that transports Elphaba and Glinda to Emerald City where they will first meet the Wizard himself.
The fabled city is located in an alternative universe of Edwardian charm and old world manners and in what is an inspired but screamingly obvious piece of casting, the Wizard is played by the always watchable Jeff Goldblum like a sinister popinjay in a frock coat with maybe a touch of Willy Wonka.
Jon M Chu and production designer Nathan Crowley have grabbed the opportunity for world-building with both hands. Their film may be slathered in caramel-hued CGI but Oz explodes into vivid life as a kind of steam punk art deco Mitteleuropean fantasia with detailed costumes and ingenious sets.
This is only part one of a two-part adaptation and it clocks in at two hours and forty minutes. We’ve a long way to go on the Yellow Brick Road but Wicked already casts quite a spell.
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