My siblings and I ventured to see Wicked because we love lots of music from the original play and had heard a lot of positive feedback for the film. My primary concern was when I heard the film would maintain some aspects of the book, which I know contains more depraved material and objectionable content than the play—but after reading reviews I’d heard the movie was on the cheesy side not the objectionable one. I heard Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were fantastic and all the singing was done live; the main complaint was that the film was drawn out into two parts. While a little odd to me this wasn’t a deal breaker, merely a curious thing. In short summation, while having some odd creative choices and a few things that didn’t translate from play to film quite believably for me—the film surpassed my expectations.

As a Film: I’ll start with the good since there’s a substantive amount here. My youngest brother is the bigger Wicked fan so he knew more about the story and has seen the full play but I hadn’t. Still, I grasped the general concepts and primary struggles the storyline is addressing.

Are we born Wicked or made that way?

What is it that makes a person Wicked?

And is our perception of who we label the villain greatly affected by our own personal bias and only being told half the story? I know these themes have been explored in much worse films like all the weak Disney Villain backstories which try saying all the bad people were never really evil to begin with, and that’s tiring, unbelievable, and not a very strong argument. In this instance, I went in knowing the play was something of a tragedy made off a revisionist history of the wicked witch of the west. It takes the approach what if the narrative isn’t true? And while that can be a difficult theme to spin because so many people are doing it, this film manages to make it work because the main character is sympathetic.

It’s also a musical, making the songs the primary point of character development. However, the main musical numbers were fantastic: the two best being, “What is This Feeling?” and “The Wizard and I.” The film doesn’t rely heavily on all the deeply written characters as much as it does archetypes: like Glinda, the self-absorbed entitled diva who’s not evil but thinks she’s good simply because she fits the bill of what passes for virtuous in the most superficial sense. Elphaba is clearly the unseen misrepresented minority who’s judged already simply for how she looks—and easily branded as evil because of people’s preconceptions. The film has themes of people aspiring to break free from other people’s preconceived ideas of them and show the world their true potential, as well as the main character realizing she cares more about what’s actually right instead of gaining the false love and adoration of others like her counterpart Glinda. I think anyone can relate to those themes and it was refreshing to see a story that wasn’t shoving a message in you’re face. It was just a musical telling the story of a passionate young woman with a difficult life marked by her appearance who’s then an easy target to be blamed for the world’s problems because of where she comes from. The movie makes you think without forcing you into an opinion, even though it’s very clearly painting certain social issues and struggles of prejudice. I’m sure the original material had its political messages but this musical was just adapting the work, and I prefer to take art independently from the creator’s personal ideas or agendas if they’re not beating me over the head with them.

•The two leads went all out, even though the main character was obviously the most sympathetic and likeable. Ariana Grande did her job well for what she was playing. Her singing was great and her onscreen presence as the superficial blonde with something of a vain charm was perfect casting. Elphaba’s character arc and musical numbers were just more compelling and gripping, making her the primary investment of the film. But it was at times funny, charming, and completely different than any other musical out there right now. Actors weren’t afraid to go crazy with the singing and dancing which fit well to the kind of movie they were making.

Issues from musical to Movie:

I had problems with some of the writing in regard to the story and how quickly things moved. For example, everything happens in the span of typically one scene or musical number. Elphaba and Glinda become friends literally right after the party scene, in which Glinda only meant to embarrass Elphaba. But because Glinda feels lousy (and rightfully so) and tries to make Elphaba feel less weird at the party they become instant friends. And for some reason Elphaba trusts Glinda after Nessa Rose claims she got her a date, instead of suspecting some trick like she should since that’s literally all she’s known of Glinda so far. Either Elphaba is just kindhearted and wants to assume the best (which could be true) or she’s naïve.

However, these were things that happened in the original play so I can’t fault the film writers for them. It’s just something that in a Broadway musical might work but translated to a movie it makes the character transitions feel very fast. I grew up on musicals, and I understand the way they do character development is fast and usually done in the span of a song which is supposed to show us all we need to know. As to what some of the transitions did for the likability of characters, I’ll address that in the next section.

Only complaints I really have:

The main criticisms I have are related to three things: slightly suggestive content, the extension of some scenes and numbers, and the lack of characters you could really empathize with.

-Regarding the suggestive content, I could’ve lived without the brief number referencing Elphaba’s mother’s adultery—I appreciate they cut it shorter than the actual play. But I’d have cut it to an implication in the subtext instead of a short scene.

• I have a similar contention with some of the choreography and the dancing in Glinda’s number and Fiyero’s. There was a bit too much throwing things around in a suggestive manner in both songs though it wasn’t through the entirety of the number. Glinda’s throwing legs around while impressive dancing, wasn’t necessary— and neither was some of the suggestive choreography in the prince’s number. I’m attuned to that sort of thing after having subjected myself to Descendants 3 (don’t ask me why I don’t intend to repeat the experience), and now my radar is on.

Both performers did an excellent job, and the elaborate choreography was impressive, but I’d appreciate them keeping the gestures and movements cleaner as I saw a lot of small children and families in the theater.

-Where the length of the film is concerned, it didn’t feel dragged out or too long overall. Where it suffered in this area was some of the songs.

•They had a lot of breaks between numbers that didn’t need to be there and disrupted the musical flow. Primarily, Popular, and Defying Gravity. On Spotify when I listen to the soundtrack I don’t have this issue, so I only noticed it when I saw the film in theaters. Popular has a lot of breaks for banter or jokes which weren’t bad, but they broke up the song a bit. Same thing with Defying Gravity—a number where you notice it infinitely more. Defying Gravity was phenomenal except for the dialogue which continued to break it up. As soon as you got hyped for a high point in the song there would be a long pause, and then some talking, and then they’d start singing again—this just disrupted the flow of an otherwise great number. The actresses still did a great job, but the way it was put together was clunky for me.

-For this last point regarding character choices, again—I know it happened in the play but some of the people’s actions still affected the film because there were so few people to root for. I understand the play is a tragedy and the whole point of it is Oz pointing a finger at one bad guy because it’s more convenient for them and everyone else being hypocrites or easily blinded and just going along with it, but it does affect how many characters I liked in the film.

•Glinda is a dingy blonde who self-righteously thinks she’s good purely on superficial means. She was funny and at times charming to watch but she spends the first half of the movie being a pain to Elphaba who really seems to be the only one annoyed by her, which I find a little hard to believe. Glinda’s popular, I get it—but there’s only so popular a person who acts like she’s better than everyone else could really be. Even in the latter half of the film it seems like Elphaba befriends her just because Glinda’s the only one who shows a spec of kindness to her or doesn’t judge her completely. Fiyero isn’t prejudiced against Elphaba, but he quickly couples up with Glinda so Elphaba and him don’t interact much. But Glinda still sides with the corrupt wizard at the end and doesn’t have the backbone to support Elphaba.

•NessaRose isn’t a bad character per say, but the only thing we know about her is she seems to be ashamed of her big sister for some reason. The only reason I can see her being resentful of Elphaba is that she’s disliked and viewed as strange by other people. So it seems, unlike Elphaba who doesn’t care what people think, NessaRose cares about public opinion and also seems quick to side with Glinda instead of her own sister in believing her date with the munchkin boy is genuine. She seems embarrassed of her sister when she comes to Shiz and at the party; so, while I felt sorry for her being in a wheelchair, she didn’t have a lot of likeable traits. Again, she’s young and the character has time to improve but that’s just what we saw in this movie.

•Boq wasn’t a great guy either. I’m sorry, but I’m so over the nice guy syndrome when all it means is that you get excused for liking the popular vain girl of the school for only superficial reasons. Because he’s nerdy or dorky doesn’t mean he’s virtuous. He only likes Glinda because she’s the bleach blonde, self absorbed, popular girl—not because of any good qualities she has. And even when he takes out NessaRose, he’s staring at her like a chump with a roving eye. We’re supposed to feel sorry for him because he doesn’t get the mean girl who’s full of herself but why does he want her unless he doesn’t have any character himself?

•Fiyero played his character well—a shallow empty person who looks for distractions in frivolity and worldliness because he doesn’t believe life holds any real value other than fleeting pleasure. He wasn’t prejudiced against Elphaba and even admires her lack of care for other people’s perception of her, which was good—he’s just in the unfortunate role of the guy who dates the bad girl before realizing he likes the good one. As a musical, the film moves fast in having his affections go from Glinda to Elphaba. Again, this is kind of the style of musicals so the speed isn’t really a complaint, going from one girl to the next and making it seem genuine is a bit of a hard sell. But because he and Glinda’s relationship is so superficial it’s easy to believe he’d want something more serious and that he sees more character in Elphaba.

And then of course there’s the corrupt wizard and the teacher who only pretends to help Elphaba—both of whom are bad people and betray her in the end. I get that it’s one of those musicals where almost no one ends up happily or turns out to be good people, it just makes for there to be fewer characters we can really like.

Is it demonic? I’ve seen this lately blowing up on the internet and social media, so I had to address it at least in part. Much more could be said on this question, but I’ll try to answer it briefly as a Protestant who despises Hollywood’s desire to make the demonic friendlier and even humorous. No. I don’t believe the film is demonic and if I did I wouldn’t watch or listen to anything in it. Scripture clearly condemns the conjuring or summoning of dark forces and diviners because it’s ungodly and sinful. However, this is the realm of fiction. It comes back to the timeless argument which has been made over Harry Potter since it was released: is having magic in a fictional story inherently evil?

I’m of the opinion that the answer is no—depending on how magic is represented in your world and where it comes from. I have a whole article answering how magic is represented in my series Avengers of Light which is built on a Christian framework, and I’ve thought long and hard about how to be reverent with it while including supernatural elements. I’ve heard people make the argument that this film calls evil good and good evil. That it’s trying to make us sympathetic to the Wicked but because this is a revisionist story of a fictional villain from a 1930s film that just isn’t true.

What that Bible verse speaks to is someone doing evil—and us labeling it as righteous or good. If someone acts cruelly to someone and we say its fine, or commits adultery and it’s acceptable, then that is calling evil good. Or if someone does good in defending someone from cruelty and we call that evil, or if they defend marriage or children and we hate them for it—that’s what the verse speaks to. In this film the “witch” is an innocent not an evil character, and she’s hated merely for how she looks. The good witch Glinda is not good but actually vain and superficial. It’s not as if the evil mean witch is being portrayed as the one we’re supposed to like and the nice one is hated—they’re simply taking a spin on a fictional history. If the film were taking a real life evil person and rewriting them as a sympathetic good one then this complaint is absolutely valid. But the Wizard of Oz was, and is, a fictional story with witches, munchkins, and cowardly lions. And even in the original film Glinda is a “witch” simply described as “the good witch of the North” so if you fundamentally have a complaint with witches being portrayed as good in any context then you’d have the same complaint for the original Wizard of Oz film.

Final thoughts: The Wicked Movie knew it’s audience. It knew fans of musical films and the original play would be looking for performances specifically and they’d be looking to see how well the songs of the film compared to the OG Broadway cast. I think even it’s extended length worked for it’s purposes since it really just meant the actors got to have more fun playing the characters and extending the songs. Overall, if you’re not one for musicals or if you’re just looking for a groundbreaking dramatic film with brilliantly written characters this may not be it for you. However, the main character’s journey was compelling and relatable, and all the actors understood the assignments and played them to the fullest. And, needless to say, I’ve listened to the films main musical numbers many times by this point.