Wicked
UNIVERSAL
Warning: The following review of Wicked contains some spoilers.
The wonderfully dazzling world of Oz has never looked so ugly in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked. Unlike Walter Murch’s Return to Oz, which had a purposeful nightmarish setting, Chu’s filmic adaptation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical of the same name is indicative of our current digitized filmmaking culture that has no idea how to shoot anything for blockbuster entertainment anymore. Instead of repurposing this imaginative world for a modern audience, Chu does the exact opposite.
It takes a Herculean feat to render this sumptuous, lush world filled with bright, vivid, impeccable colors so lifeless and devoid of any wonder or fun. When Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) opened that door for the first time in Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz, she revealed a swirling yellower-than-yellow brick road, beautifully detailed flowers, plants, and expressive houses that deftly showcased the minute community of Munchkinland. It was not only a leap forward for Dorothy to explore a world she had never imagined before but also for the visual art form of cinema that showcased, for the first time, the limitless possibilities of Technicolor in front of an audience.
The shot of Dorothy opening her door remains one of the most imaginatively jaw-dropping frames in the history of popular film and continues to enthrall young (and old) audiences even long after its release. But that’s the power of a movie featuring images and setpieces that will forever be timeless in its artful display of wondrous set design and color photography. Even Sam Raimi, whose Oz The Great and Powerful may be his weakest movie, understood that the world of Oz needs heightened and brightly imaginative colors. As a result, he filled his CGI-heavy-Oz with as many as he could. Murch’s Return to Oz is an outlier in that regard. However, he attempted to reinterpret the world in a different light than most would’ve liked to see, and, in the process, traumatized a generation of children (but that’s a story for another time).
A film adaptation of Wicked was inevitable, with the skyrocketing global success the production received (this critic remains blown away by having seen it at the Place-des-Arts in Montreal when it had a limited engagement during its world tour and always thinks about the show-stopper that is Defying Gravity). Although it experienced years of development hell, the fact that it has finally been released in theatres (albeit, Part One, though never promoted as such, like Denis Villeneuve’s Dune) feels like a miracle in and of itself. Beginning with a classic variation of a Universal Pictures logo and the film’s only half-decent frame of Elphaba’s (Cynthia Erivo) hat reflecting on water, signaling that the Wicked Witch of the West is dead, one may have the impression that Chu and cinematographer Alice Brooks have upped their skills in how they will frame this gargantuan musical after working together in bringing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights to life.
Yet, immediately after Glinda (Ariana Grante-Butera) tells audiences, “Let me tell you the whole story” (that is a bald-faced lie since this is PART ONE), Chu and editor Myron Kerstein cut to the Yellow Brick Road and Munchkinland, and it’s never looked this colorless, even more so than how Murch repurposed Oz in his sequel to Fleming’s film. Chu is not looking to show the darkness (at least in its first half) that imbues this bountiful land and instead depicts the joys of a blossoming friendship until the movie's back half. In that regard, Oz is portrayed as a place where everything is possible and brings out the best in all of us.
Sadly, some individuals have corrupted this place for their own personal gains, which will be fully revealed by the time Wicked: Part One reaches a climactic showdown between Elphaba, Glinda, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), and the Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). But most of Wicked’s runtime focuses on developing a friendship between Glinda (initially named Galinda) and Elphaba, who were first perceived as rivals. Elphaba’s green skin color initially repulses Glinda. However, when forced to bunk together upon the orders of Madame Morrible, the two eventually begin to understand themselves at a deeper level. They profoundly connect, which should theoretically make their separation during Defying Gravity all the more heartbreaking.
But Brooks’ camera never supports Erivo and Grande’s rock-solid work and instead hampers some of their most significant emotional beats with an artificial sheen permeating each shoddily constructed frame. None of their development registers as authentic because audiences are too busy looking at how fake Nathan Crowley’s designs of the Yellow Brick Road, Shiz University, or, worse yet, Emerald City looks. But when one observes behind-the-scenes photos and featurettes of Wicked, one can see the impeccable creativity that went into its production. Yet, why does it look like none of this is realized on screen? A movie like this should tickle the imagination, inspire wonder, and widen our eyes in reinterpreting a world through a light that most haven’t seen before.
Shiz University, in particular, is our film’s Hogwarts. It’s the place where the impossible becomes possible, where everyone puts their differences aside and learn to operate in this magical world. Yet there isn’t a single image that one can extract from these sequences that doesn’t look like pure sludge, suppressing the impact that its (admittedly well-choreographed and sung) musical numbers could have or how its actors should communicate with the frame. Scenes are either overlit or underlit. There is no in-between or ways in which Brooks will expressively represent the world with dreamy, eye-popping colors the way Fleming did in the 1939 original. Even pink hues in musical numbers don’t look bright or colorful enough. They always look much darker than what its original color might have been on set.
One such sequence, where Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), expresses his desires for Glinda (“Dancing Through Life”), occurs as the camera (and library set) rotates. A sequence like this typically inspires movement and showcases how the camera responds to its gargantuan sets and intricately choreographed numbers. The camera is the primary vessel for emotion and movement. Always has been. And always will be.
Crowley’s designs are impressive and extensive in scale, yet Brooks’ lens renders them unimpressively distant and fake. It’s unforgivable for the sun to look whited out by an overexposed lens as the camera reaches Glinda and Fiyero’s faces (essentially, the yellow sun should bathe in their loving embrace as they experience lust, yet all we see is a white blob on top of their heads). There’s no joy, or beauty in any of these images, which should emotionally connect with the audience and support how the characters behave in the environment they live in.
It feels particularly weird to observe these listless images after Chu and Brooks brought so much life to In the Heights, whether through its dizzyingly intricate choreographies or in giving the right emotional texture to some of the story’s most dramatic numbers (“Blackout,” “Carnaval del Barrio,” “Paciencia y Fe,” and “When the Sun Goes Down” are some of its biggest highlights). Chu has proven himself to be a capable filmmaker in capturing choreography and music unlike few directors in the mainstream consciousness can (see Step Up 2: The Streets or Step Up 3D), and has used this knowledge to craft balletic action setpieces in the severely underrated G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
While he may not have been the most inspired choice to bring the world of Wicked to life (some more flamboyant filmmakers could’ve given it a more expressive style in line with the stage production), he’s certainly competent. Plus, Brooks is a great cinematographer, as illustrated through her stark (and methodical) use of perspective in In the Heights. That’s why it feels consistently baffling to spend 160 minutes in front of an IMAX screen looking at some of the most unremarkably synthetic and plastic images seen in a major motion picture all year, with any half-decent shot immediately supplanted by an array of gunk. It makes its lead performances less effective because Erivo and Grande have no idea how to control their eyes and subtle facial shifts in a camera that’s never in service of the protagonists (compared to Erivo’s Oscar-worthy star-making turns in Drew Goddard’s Bad Times at the El Royale and Steve McQueen’s Widows, the two best films of 2018).
Erivo is an actor who operates with the camera. She always slightly looks at the audience (but stays in the diegesis just enough not to break the fourth wall entirely, exemplified here by her “I am!” answer to Glinda’s “You’re green!”) to give them a fleeting glimpse of her character’s inner feelings. That’s how she’s always worked and will likely always do. It sets her apart as one of the very best performers in the game.
All of us also know how great of a singer she is (alongside Grande), so it’s no surprise that she sings her heart out when Defying Gravity concludes this part of “the whole story.” Yet, with such minute work she accomplishes to reinterpret Elphaba from Idina Menzel, Brooks’ camera never accompanies Elphaba in her journey of self-discovery and acceptance, preferring to fill the screen with drab CGI that immediately removes a sense of authenticity from its grand sets and Erivo’s performance. Because everything feels so phony, it’s hard to emotionally latch onto this friendship that takes so long to get going, despite, again, Grande and Erivo doing their best to bring life into their respective characters.
But when Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel appear in what is possibly the best cameo of the year, it immediately shows that no one, no matter how good (or great) they are, could ever top these interpretations of Glinda and Elphaba. It’s the only moment in Wicked where its performances are actually in service of Brooks’ camera and control every ounce of the frame (Chenoweth cheekily shutting Grande’s mouth so she can sing brought about the biggest laughs of the sold-out auditorium). They actually bathe with the slight pinks given to the characters who recontextualize the story of the Wizard of Oz, before our protagonists meet him (and are introduced into his lair by none other than Stephen Schwartz himself!).
And as good as Goldblum is, the fact that it took over two hours and twenty minutes to get to the intermission sequence of a two-and-a-half-hour show feels completely unjustified. There is a sense that the relationship between Glinda and Elphaba feels much more developed and less rushed than the show, but to the detriment of the main story’s rhythm. Part One moves at a snail’s pace, and instead of reaching an emotional apex that feels earned in its first half to get to the good stuff, it abruptly halts just as their friendship comes to a head. It doesn’t fall prey to overstuffing the audience with endless exposition as do most Part Ones, but it still doesn’t do much to hold our attention and make us care about the adventure that Chu proposes to his audience.
Since everything looks and feels hokey, it’s hard to want to stay in the world of Oz, compared to when Dorothy opened her door and discovered something new, alive, and wonderful. Some of the most grandiose shots of Wicked are plastered with visual effects that look barely finished (the flying monkey transformation is played through a body horror light, but the animal itself doesn’t feel fully rendered) and remove any sense of enthrallment that a child can have in seeing this world in a new light. Of course, kids will always have the original adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz to watch and rewatch, but this new film version by way of Wicked had the possibility of reinventing this place with contemporary sensibilities.
Yet, by splitting the story into two unnecessary parts, moving its story slowly with a semi-developed narrative arc for its protagonists but thinly-layered supporting players (Madame Morrible’s shift is expected for those who have seen the show, but feels so telegraphed here that even the ones who have never heard of the production will see it coming a mile away) and an ugly visual style, it feels notably defeating. It’s even worse when one watches Jon M. Chu’s In the Heights and sees the full creativity on display, from its bright costumes, to its dynamic cinematography and staggering musical numbers.
None of this is found in Wicked, regardless of how good our lead actors are. Their performances on their own can only go so far if the camera can’t support them, or reveal something far deeper than their work does. Unfortunately, one cannot overstate its visual style and how it impacts virtually every single aspect of this production, even more shamefully so when it follows in the footsteps of Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz. No children today will ever have a movie that can blow them away in the same fashion than Fleming’s film did because movies these days don’t want to inspire their imagination to dream bigger than this pessimistic world we collectively live in.
Film is a visual medium. It began as such and is now primarily so. Dialogue is secondary. This critic doesn’t remember every line from The Wizard of Oz, but certainly cannot forget watching Dorothy transition from black-and-white (or sepia tone) to color for the first time. The eyes widened, and the world suddenly looked more hopeful. Images are what cinema is all about. If your movie does not look good, chances are it won’t be good, because the camera never lies. It allows us to see the world through an individual, subjective eye, and perhaps make sense of this society our collective imagination is stuck in.
The camera supports everything. The acting. The sets. The music. The editing. The songs. The costumes. The visual effects. Everything. If it fails to capture a moment of magic when Oz is filled with it, then it has failed as movie. And when the best part of your first installment is a cameo to remind audiences how incredible its theatrical production is, the movie has also failed in creating a legacy that celebrates the show, but has its own individuality as a feature. Perhaps Part Two will undergo a significant aesthetic overhaul and understand what makes the world of Oz so unique. However, since Wicked’s primary goal is to sucker audiences into buying tickets without a thought on how it looks (and lying to audiences that it’s a complete film), there’s very little hope this will be the case.