Reviewing Jon M. Chu's Wicked

!Spoilers!: I will be reviewing the full movie, so there will be spoilers

[edit: I didn't really spoil that much. If you're going to see the movie anyway, I didn't really say anything that's not already famous about the musical or kind of obvious from the beginning. So I would still appreciate it you read it to give me validation + dopamine :3]

1 The Morning After. 

As I am reviewing this, I have finished my morning cup of Joe, and I am listening to Norman F*cking Rockwell by Lana Del Rey. What is with everyone censoring swear words online lately? Out of fear of getting shadow banned, and respect for internet culture, I inserted an aster*sk into "F*cking", but I would rather swear wholeheartedly. 

As I am reviewing this, I have also eaten a small bowl of lotion-contaminated dragonfruit that my mom made me, which I think indicates that she is in a good movie, which I think is a positive indicator of her reaction to the Wicked movie. Idk, it might have also been because we had a halcyon day together yesterday. Actually I'm done streaming Norman F*cking Rockwell (I only like like the first few songs on that album up to like Venice Bxtch), and now I'm listening to X's by Cigarettes After Sex on YouTube. Wow I have taste lol. I love being an Instagram DJ and posting music on my story, just like everybody elseee. Yesterday, in my email to my ex I was like "I'm elongating my letters because I'm flirting with uuuu", and I feel like I was so real for that. 

Why so soon reviewing Wicked, you ask?? Well, because I am your trusty steward of culture and arts of course, and...I wanted to have the movie fresh in my mind when I was reviewing it. 

ANWAYS

2 Review (Part 1)

I think I'll just dive right into it. Major spoiler alert ! I CAN'T BELIEVE thE MOVIE WAS ONLY PART ONE. DID ANYONE ELSE KNOW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN??? THE MOVIE IS ONLY PART ONE OF THE WICKED MUSICAL AND WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE PART TWO!!!! WTF!!!! I FEEL SO CHEATED. >:[ I changed my mind. I might finish Norman Fucking Rockwell later, just for completeness. Also fuck asterisks...for now. Idk I'm not that edgy. 

Other than feeling cheated for only getting a part one (on Wikipedia it says "The film was split in two to avoid cutting plot points and to expand the journeys and relationships between the characters." Right...), I LOVED the movie, and I am now an Ariana Grande stan...Although I already kind of was before, but don't tell my non-oomf friend that. He thinks Mariah is better than Ariana, but is there really a comparison?? Why are we comparing qweens? But ONLY PART ONE???? REALLY????? Okay, I guess I'll just have to line up with my buffalo chicken wings for part two. Lol. See y'all there...

Ariana Grande stuns in the movie in her pink outfits, and so does Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, the green one. The pink and green really looked good throughout the movie, but something about the color-grading resembled the other musical that Jon M. Chu directed, In the Heights, I think in the early 2010's. I think he also directed a Step Up, which makes sense. The dance numbers are huge and expansive, although I still feel that no dance numbers can beat the opening dance number All That Jazz in Chicago (2002), my fave movie. I still feel they were well-choreographed, though, and shot well. 8/10. (Chicago: 10/10, although probably not a fair comparison).

I said "Review (Part 1)" because IT WAS ONLY PART ONE. Ugh ugh ugh. I still feel kind of snatched by that ending. It ends abruptly with Elphaba singing "Defying Gravity" and flying away cackling into the stormy night sky. I thought it was going to tell us how she became the Wicked Witch of the West, and how Ariana Grande, I mean Glinda, betrayed her. 

3 Sisterhood. 

The central theme in the movie, of course, is the relationship between Glinda and Elphaba. I have seen some online memes about Glinda being in the closet, and I do have to say, I felt sometimes like they were on the verge of kissing. I think this will be fodder for the online fan fiction community. That being said, I thought their story arc through the movie was very emotional and touching, and I am excited to see the denouement in part two. I was on the verge of crying multiple times through the movie, but I held it in to not ruin my mascara, dahling. Jk, I just feel like I shouldn't be crying right now, I'm not sure why. 

I have never seen the musical before, and I didn't know any details about the plot prior to seeing the movie, besides the famous numbers "Popular" and "Defying Gravity", so I was shook at the scene where Elphaba starts dancing at the school dance, and everyone thinks she's super weird, but Galinda starts dancing with her, and everyone starts copying them. It was 10/10 the most moving scene in the whole movie. It was also foreshadowed in the beginning a bit I think. I just love a character who is misunderstood and under-loved by all, being accepted by a loved-by-all and seemingly ubiquitously understood counterpart, the CONTRAST, arc. It almost seems like a fan fiction trope...What is it with me and fan fiction? 

I also loved the "Popular" scene, but idk, it seemed to be lacking summat. It seemed to fall slightly flat. Idk, this might be kind of a salty thing to say, but when they brought out Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel for that one random scene, you could really tell the difference between people who truly are Broadway broads (not to say Ari or Cynthia were never on Broadway, but still), and people who are less theatre singers (you have to admit, even if Ari was on Broadway as a child, she is not really a true Broadway singer). The timbre of Kristin and Idina's voices was just immediately evident, and Ari just didn't exactly carry in "Popular", but I still loved the #sisterhood in that scene, as well as the foreshadowing of Glinda's selfish nature and probably future betrayal...fan fiction. 

4 Race?

Okay, there's a lot of songs in Norman Fucking Rockwell after Venice Bitch, so I'm going to try to stream the entire thing while I finish writing this damn review. I feel like I have issues with following long-form media, idk, even during Wicked I felt myself losing interest halfway through the movie, during the subplot when Elphaba begins falling for Ari's, I mean Glinda's man. Not to say it was anything bad about the movie though! That was probably just me. There were like children in the movie who probably were more focused than me. I was also checking my phone for instagram notifications throughout the movie, which please like my post if you haven't (I was hoping for 100 likes this time, but unfortunately that wish did not, ultimately, come true. If I could visit the Wizard of Oz, and had one wish, that wish would be to get 100+ likes on an Instagram post...jkjk it would be for my ex to email me back.) 

I felt that, in light of Jon M. Chu's previous directorial efforts, Crazy Rich Asians being one of them, it was necessary to mention his choices of race in the movie. There is not much to say here, except that Elphaba (Cynthia Eriva) is played by a black woman, and Glinda (Ariana Grande) is Caucasian. The fact that Elphaba is green is just an added symbolic layer that she is being ostracized and is different from everyone else (in the original, Idina Menzel is Jewish and plays the singled-out green Elphaba famously). I just felt that the racial subtexts were really strong from the beginning. As always, I am not Frantz Fanon, so there is not I wanted to say about this, except interesting...the choices...It was also interesting that he chose Michelle Yeoh to play the evil step-mother archetype, in this case the dean of Shiz University (this school name????),  omg Fuck it I love you is so good. Sorry, that Michelle Yeoh is an Asian woman. Probably doesn't mean much, but still. 

I felt that the casting was a modern version of the racial commentary present in the original musical, which was about a Jew and a white woman. This time, in 2024, it is about a black woman and a white (? Italian ? ) woman. Idk if there was any intentional racial commentary in the original 1995 novel, or if this was added in the Broadway adaptation, but the bullying in the movie was very present. 

5 School <3

Idk why the text got bolded like halfway through the post, and now I can't change it back. There is a brown ant crawling across my laptop screen right now. Does brown mean poisonous???

Something I really loved about Wicked was the fact that it was set in a school. I am reading White Noise by Don DeLillo right now, which is also set in a college, and Harry Potter was also about the teaching of witchcraft and sorcery in a school. It's hard not to make parallels between Harry Potter and Wicked. There's just something so magical about school, and about school being a setting in fictional worlds. I think the Wicked novel came out before Harry Potter though. But "Shiz University". Whyyyy. I don't really have that much more to say about this topic. I just love school, and I miss school, and I want to go back to school. And yes, school is a magical place, so it makes sense to teach magic in schools in these fictions. Just make sure to avoid the evil mistresses and make friends with the Goat teachers. It's probably also an interesting setting because there's the inherent social hierarchies and dramas that happen in school settings. Idkkkkk. 

6 In conclusion.

Okayyyy, I'm kinda done writing this. I want to work on something else now. Omg I have been so busy lately, in between the vlogging, blogging, tweeting, instagramming, tiktoking, therapy, sound clouding, general household things. Overall, I loved the movie. 9.5/10. Missing a 0.5 because it was only part one. Was the original musical like four hours?? I'm already seated for part two. I think my mom liked it too, at least she didn't get mad at me like she did for Anora. Peace love and Wicked ! Have a good day. xxxxxx