Wicked: Part One (2024) has a problem

Yes, I’m blaming Chu.

‘Wicked’ remains one of theatre’s most enduring classics for a goddamn reason. The family friendly veneer of Oz masks a musical that is both touching and genuinely compelling, taking the story of two women’s friendship and placing it against an admittedly quirky political drama. Plus, the obvious points it wins by having some of the best music put to stage in the 21st Century.

I like it.

There’s obviously been bubblings of a film adaptation for years now, which has finally coalesced into 2024’s Wicked…Part One. Yes, this near 3-hour epic barely covers the first act of a play that in whole runs roughly the same lengths. I’d ask how we get here, but that feels a little useless. Let’s just focus on the product.

I want to start this off by saying that this is none of the performers faults. Everyone does well on screen. Yes, some people are worse singers than others (poor Michelle Yeoh speaks melodically the best she can), but the main cast is so full of talent that it all comes together. The songs are basically intact (small phrases are changed sporadically, likely because Oz-speak can be a bit much), and everyone has chemistry.

A special acknowledgement must be given to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande (credited as Grande-Butera) as the co-leads. Erivo remains one of the great musical performers of our generation. Her Elphaba is at once fierce and tender, with plenty of humour beneath her blustering. It’s a beautiful compliment to Grande’s Galinda/Glinda, who takes the character to a softer place than the stage, particularly through the second act. The overall effect is an emotional tidal wave, and it’s glorious.

Jonathan Bailey deserves some credit for his uproarious performance as Prince Fiyero, while Ethan Slater plays the unrequited longing of Bok to perfection, and Marissa Bode handles the hopes and resentments of Nessarose with a deft hand. I made a small dig at Yeoh’s singing earlier, but she and Jeff Goldblum do an excellent job as the duo of antagonists in the final act. I even enjoyed the comic relief of Bowen Yang and Bronwyn James. It’s just a great cast.

Which is why it pains me to say that the technical aspects of the film hold it back…by a lot.

There’s been plenty to say online about the colouring and lighting. Truly, I think both are mostly passable. Heavy on back lighting and often slightly unflattering, but not the overblown washout of the trailers. I do wish more effort had been made to soften the shadows – particularly on Erivo, who occasionally almost loses her eyes in them. On the colouring, I think the Emerald City could have used a touch more oomph, but that’s essentially it. It could have looked spectacular, but I’ll settle for visible and unoffensive.

What I cannot accept, however, is the camera work. The main job of a move-musical is to showcase the numbers, and somehow this was not the priority for Jon M. Chu. Frequently the camera sits behind someone’s head, or the film cuts to unnecessary reaction shots that break the action. ‘The Wizard and I’ is one of my favourite moments on stage, and the film manages to make the sequence boring and staid.

The editing in general is senseless and often incompetent. Cutting between dialogue is not a complicated thing, but often Chu decides to focus on the listener in a way that is mildly headache-inducing. Grande suffers the most from this – her Glinda is frequently cut out of moments in a way that is obviously intentional but ill-handled. I understand why she’s not in frame, but it kneecaps her punchlines more than once. It’s one of the few stylistic choices Chu makes, and it’s a bad once.

When not incompetent, the musical numbers are only competent. There are infrequent attempts to utilize the camera’s ability to be anywhere to enhance the movement, but most of the time, it’s predictable and a touch bland. There’s one shot in ‘Popular’ that I think actively engages in the scene itself, and that’s the only interesting choice in the film.

Well, that and the poorly handled action sequence that surrounds ‘Defying Gravity’, almost ruining the movie’s single most important musical number. Erivo’s gravity-defying looks ridiculous, and the whole scene is handled so poorly I could have cried. Again, Erivo and Grande save it by simply being great in these roles, but it was infuriating.

It’s just a mess of filmmaking. The point of adapting a theatrical production to the screen is that there’s a freedom to make everything feel bigger without sacrificing the spirit of the original. The limitations of a physical set don’t exist. Chu seems comfortable to give himself a new set of boundaries that he never considers tearing down. His moves through Shiz and the Emerald City mostly on the ground, and almost always in small spaces.

It’s unfortunate that Oz, maybe the greatest of the American fantasies, is bogged down by an insistence on feeling “real” on screen. The colours are inoffensive when they should be spectacular. The setting is lovely when it should be overwhelming and magnificent. Even Disney’s abysmal ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ (2013) understood the scope, so it’s a point of failure that Chu’s world often lacks grandeur or humour. Real sets are great, but they aren’t a solution for your lack of imagination.

With all of this being said, the film is still an adaptation of the first act of ‘Wicked’. It’s got the best songs, great performances, and the runtime barely feels oppressive. It’ll be a school movie day classic for generations to come. I cannot commend it, but I will recommend it.