Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are superbly matched in the roles of Elphaba and Glinda in this film version of Stephen Schwartz’s musical
November 19, 2025 17:26
Whereas the stage version of The Hunger Games fails to do justice to the original film, the film versions of the stage show Wicked surpass even the smash-hit original.
Any sense that making two films out of one Stephen Schwartz musical sets a new (low) standard in Hollywood exploitation evaporates with the sheer command with which director Jon. M Chu has over Winnie Holzman’s screenplay (she also wrote the book for the musicals).
It is not only that Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are as superbly matched as they are contrasting in the roles of Elphaba and Glinda respectively. What puts the glacier cherry on this multi-tiered cake of a movie is the way in which the classic story of Dorothy’s adventure in Oz, which has been so indelibly planted in the public’s consciousness by the Judy Garland film, is pulled into this entirely fresh take with as much elegance as eye for detail.
It answers such mysteries as how the lion became cowardly; the tin man came to have no heart; and the Scarecrow came to exist at all.
We also learn that the Yellow Brick Road, which in this version leads to Jeff Goldblum’s snake oil of a fake Wizard, is laid with the kind of slave-driving brutality more often associated with building projects undertaken by Pharaoh.
Jonathan Bailey reprises his enjoyable Fiyero, the dashing hedonist prince who turns out to have the heart of a revolutionary when he sees talking animals banished from public life like, well, Jews in Nazi Germany.
Yes, the old allegorical reference beloved by every director with an instinct for social justice is clear and present here. But it is handled with wit and sensitivity by a storytelling bravura. It also subverts the fairytale genre embodied by Grande’s puff-ball heroine.
I was a fan before because of the decency with which she handled the Manchester bombing of her concert. I’m even more so now with the knowing, self-deprecating humour with which she inhabits the shallow vanity of her character while also conveying the unease her Glinda has with her own superficiality.
Erivo’s Elphaba meanwhile is the more grounded foil to Grande’s airhead. Underneath the green of her skin is a supremely talented black star who well understands the bigotry of those who see skin colour before they see anything else about a person.
There is just the one false step when Fiyero declares he can now appreciate Elphaba’s beauty by seeing things in a different way. Excuse me? We are talking about Erivo’s Elphaba; braids flowing, her bare shoulder lit by moonlight and eyes like planets and Fiyero is talking as if he is looking at an example of Brutalist architecture?
Everything else is pitch-perfect escapism.
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