Now that a good chunk of the world has seen Wicked at least once, it’s time for me to air my grievance. Like many, I loved the movie. However, I am a critic and critics gotta crit.
I was a critic of the original stage production as well. I wasn’t a professional critic then—I was a teenaged theatre kid who grew up so obsessed with The Wizard of Oz I used to get up early before preschool so my mom could do my hair in two braids. I did a school report on the book which explained how it’s an allegory for the demonetization of silver (nerd), and I’d read the Gregory Maguire novel ahead of seeing the pre-Broadway run of Wicked in San Francisco on my eighteenth birthday. Yes, with Idina and Kristin.
While I loved the performances, I was not a huge fan of the show itself, and neither were professional critics. The New York Times said it was “lopsided” and that the relationship between the leads was “ambivalent.” Variety said the musical has a “cumbersome plot,” Elphaba’s character “doesn’t have much definition,” and the love triangle is “trite.” However, as chronicled by The Daily Beast’s Obsessed’s own Wicked expert, Kevin Fallon, on the occasion of the show’s tenth anniversary, Wicked continues to soar despite initial bad reviews.
Even though the now 21-year-old show has a confusifying plot, underdeveloped characters, and an unclear political message, Wicked has a heart which, thankfully, director Jon M. Chu and co. have been able to capture for the screen version of the musical—except, by bungling the timeline in the same way the stage show does, the movie fails yet again to develop the relationship between the main characters, leaving too much up to interpretation and the actors themselves.
Dramaturgically, in order for Wicked to make sense, we need to feel the strength of the friendship of the two women, which leads to the conflict that comes between them: Elphaba wants to do good and Glinda wants to appear good. Plus, Elphaba steals Glinda’s man.
In a classic example of telling not showing, two witches tell us they are best friends over and over (“Elphie, now that we’re friends…” “Two good friends, two BEST friends”). In actuality, the friendship is, at best, just days old when the love triangle conflict arises. Likewise, Glinda and Fiyero have known each other for one measly day when Elphaba sings about the couple, “There’s a girl I know, he loves her so, I’m not that girl.”
Don’t believe me? Let’s roll the tape:
- Fiyero arrives on his talking horse and meets Elphaba in the woods. Vibes. (This is a change from the stage show and is exactly like his meet/hate in Bridgerton, down to the horse. If it ain’t broke…).
- Fiyero arrives at Shiz and he and Glinda make a date for the Ozdust.
- We dance through life to the Ozdust, where Boq spots Glinda and Fiyero making out on the dance floor.
- Elphaba is humiliated by her hat but dances like no one’s watching.
- Glinda dances with her and then ditches Fiyero to run home with her new girlfriend-I-mean-roommate/bff.
- The two women stay up all night doing a makeover.
- The next morning, Elphaba is tossing her hair outside the classroom and Fiyero says, “You’ve been Galindafied…Let’s get to class.”
- In class, Elphaba does the sleeping spell and she and Fiyero free the lion.
- Elphaba holds Fiyero’s face and heals him of his lion scratch. We hold space with that. Feel the power in that.
- Fiyero leaves. Elphaba sings, “I’m Not That Girl.” We hold too much space with that. Pick up your cues, Elphie. Act on the line!
Some time eventually passes, and Elphaba is invited to meet the Wizard. Just before Elphaba is set to leave for the Emerald City, Glinda says Fiyero has been acting “distant and moodified” since the day with the lion cub, a day which, again, tracks as 24 hours after the couple first met.
Now Glinda does have a flair for the dramatic, like when she said she was going to marry Fiyero on the night after the Ozdust but that “he doesn’t know it yet.” However, Fiyero says he “thinks about that day a lot.” If we aren’t setting up Fiyero and Elphaba’s future betrayal of Glinda, what is the point of all these longing stares?! Drama does tend to occur on a short timeline (Romeo and Juliet takes place over five days), but, among Wicked’s many plot holes (most are in Act 2), this one cheapens the emotional core.
To fix it, they could have cut the “Galindafied” comment, which could imply that the date of the lion cub release was more in the future than the day after the Ozdust. They also could have made “I’m Not That Girl” a montage, showing Elphaba watching Fiyero and Glinda dating and falling in love, while Elphaba is relegated to the shadows.
Another option is they could have cut down the clunky animal-rights plot to make room for more time with the Shiz students. I still think they should have cut “Something Bad” because it wasn’t enough of a change from the stage version to warrant that horrible song, and the computer generated animals look bad plopped into the tactile Oz sets.
The reason the relationship development matters this early in the story is that we never return to Shiz University once Elphaba and Glinda board the train to the Emerald City. Glinda and Elphaba hardly spend any time together in Act 2. Now, there are rumors and speculations, innuendo, outuendo (okay it’s another mistake that they cut this line), that Part 2 will have new material, which might fill some of the gaping holes. This makes sense since the stage show’s second act runs about an hour. But still, the friendship and the triangle needs to be well-established in Part 1 in order to have heft in Part 2, and I simply didn’t buy it.
Since I enjoyed the movie so much, I’m choosing to have a little faith. During “No One Mourns the Wicked,” when Glinda begins to explain that she and Elphaba were friends, there is a tiny flash of a school scene we haven’t seen, showing “the gang” picnicking or something. Maybe there will be flashbacks to strengthen the characters’ bonds and arcs. However, I would have preferred to feel the love between Elphaba and Glinda on screen more, not just during the actors’ press appearances.
Oh yeah and I miss the Time Dragon. Erasing her is the wildest, most offensive thing I’ve ever seen.
