Wicked: For Good is, in many respects, standard Universal fare. It’s glossy, overproduced, and ripe with franchise potential Disney will exploit, a partially defanged adaptation of source material that cut deeper and hit harder. Thankfully, though, it’s also an absolute blast.
If Wicked: Part One was Cynthia Erivo’s movie, then Wicked: For Good belongs to Ariana Grande. She’s a fun, funny, and utterly magnetic Glinda, juggling the character’s darkness and levity with a grace of which she hadn’t previously shown herself capable. Erivo is, of course, excellent, but it’s Grande who gets the most substantial material. More importantly, Glinda and Elphaba’s friendship resonates almost entirely because of Grande; she’s so earnest, so authentic about how her character grows as a human being that it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the part.
It’s been five years since Elphaba stole the Grimmerie and vanished from society, giving Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the Wizard (a silver-tongued Jeff Goldblum) ample time to turn the people of Oz against her. Glinda and her fiancée, Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), have reluctantly become cogs in Morrible’s propaganda machine, each of them using their status to find Elphaba before literally anyone else does.
Both Elphaba and Glinda are grappling with the shoulds their toxic society imposes upon them. For Elphaba, the should is external; the general public believes she should turn herself in to Morrible, that she shouldn’t be green, and that she should just die already. For Glinda, it’s all about looking inward. A flashback shows young Glinda struggling to cast spells at her birthday party, eventually fooling her friends but realising she isn’t gifted the way she wants to be. This pampered phantom haunts her throughout the film, forcing her to bring who she is closer to who she wants to be.
Wicked: For Good isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch, but it doesn’t need to be. Its aspirations start and stop at being fun, funny, touching, accessible, and musically engaging, and it achieves all of those things with ease. Hopefully, it ages as well as the play has.
WICKED: FOR GOOD is out now.
