Spoiler Alert: Spoilers follow for Wicked
After spending almost two decades in development hell, the Broadway musical Wicked finally made it to the big screen. By all accounts, it was worth the wait — it’s been a smash hit with critics and audiences alike, all on top of debuting to the third-biggest opening weekend of 2024. Best of all, the film lives up to the overwhelming hype; it’s one of the best movie musicals of the last decade, brimming with utter joy in its craft and never feeling anything less than a labor of love from the creative team.
Much has also been written about Wicked’s surprising political relevance. In the aftermath of one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent (and distant) memory, the musical’s themes of authoritarianism and oppression towards outsiders feel more prescient than ever. Yet maybe the cleverest level on which Wicked succeeds is how thoroughly it deconstructs the world of Oz itself. Almost everyone has seen The Wizard of Oz, and for good reason: it’s the perfect film to show a child and the perfect marriage of the coming-of-age narrative and fantasy. Yet Wicked forces us to question our relationship with such a formative text.
- Release Date
- November 22, 2024
- Cast
- Cynthia Erivo , Ariana Grande , Michelle Yeoh , Jeff Goldblum , Jonathan Bailey , Ethan Slater , Marissa Bode , Bowen Yang , Bronwyn James , Keala Settle , Peter Dinklage , Aaron Teoh , Grecia De la Paz , Colin Michael Carmichael , Adam James , Andy Nyman , Courtney Mae-Briggs , Sharon D. Clarke , Jenna Boyd
- Runtime
- 160 Minutes
‘Wicked’ Deconstructs the Land of Oz
On the surface, The Wizard of Oz is as clear-cut a fable of good versus evil as it gets, even in its several different reimaginings. Dorothy Gale, an outsider from Kansas, is transported to the fantastical land of Oz, where the benevolent Glinda sends her on a mission to meet the titular Wizard, who will help her return home. Along the way, she’s joined by the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion while they face off against the villainous Wicked Witch of the West.
Yet there’s a bit more darkness lurking under the story’s surface than one would expect. At the end, the Wizard is revealed to be an ordinary man and a fraud, who even fails at his simple task of getting Dorothy home. What makes Wicked so fascinating is how it uses the story’s darker subtext as a starting point and runs with it.
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To begin with, the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) isn’t just a fraud in this — he’s the villain of the movie, using his power to sow division throughout Oz. In his words, “The best way to bring people together is to give them a real good enemy,” so he and his cronies work to strip the land’s talking animals of their civil rights bit by bit, up to and including forcing them to forget how to speak. Worse still, he tries to convince Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) to serve as his partner, knowing she can cast the magic he can’t, but when she sees through his plans, he immediately brands her as an enemy of the state.
All of a sudden, the once seemingly benevolent land of Oz now seems anything but. Even Glinda (Ariana Grande), ostensibly the “Good Witch”, now seems more complicated than we first thought. She starts the movie as a ditz obsessed with status and self-image, and while on some level she comes to sympathize with the discrimination Elphaba faces, she’s privileged enough to not comprehend how systemic it is. In the final scenes, when Elphaba vows to bring the Wizard down, Glinda reluctantly agrees to work for him, accepting that any goodness she wants to do under him will first and foremost serve the people in power, regardless of their corruption.
What Does It Mean to Be Wicked?
Still, Wicked’s most subversive element of all involves the titular character. On one level, the Wicked Witch of the West’s unambiguous villainy works perfectly for a film like The Wizard of Oz, which was aimed mostly at children, and her character didn’t need to be anything more than a threat for the forces of good to triumph over. But since Wicked from the start paints the land of Oz, and especially the Wizard, in a much darker light, the film questions how we define “wickedness” and how or why someone might be labeled a villain.
And it’s here that the story’s tragedy shines brightest. Elphaba has been an outsider her entire life as a result of having been born with green skin, and her demeanor tells us everything we need to know about how it affects her. The second she arrives at Shiz University, when Glinda reacts in horror at her appearance, she owns it and pretends she doesn’t care, even as we see the opposite. It’s no surprise that her closest early friendship is with Doctor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage), a talking goat professor who knows what it’s like to be treated like an “other” all too well.
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Even before we see the Wizard’s fraudulence, there’s a sad undercurrent to Elphaba’s desire to be accepted (and some fans are sadly already failing to grasp the themes of inclusivity). Since her childhood, she’s dictated her worth on what others think of her, and she wants to believe that working hand-in-hand with the Wizard will make that discrimination vanish overnight. These hopes are only further fueled when Shiz professor Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) agrees to help her hone her magic skills, especially when the Wizard invites her to the Emerald City, wanting to work with her.
But her hopes are dashed when she realizes they intend to use her status as an outsider to maintain their corrupt policies. And the second she raises skepticism about it, the Wizard and Morrible immediately cast her aside and deem her a “wicked witch”, knowing that their power allows them to dictate public opinion and turn the people of Oz against someone different. Thus, the film’s tragedy comes through in its illustration that “wickedness” is relative and too often defined by those who wish to oppress anyone who questions the status quo.
‘Wicked’ Defies Gravity — And Our Expectations
Since everyone knows where The Wizard of Oz goes, Wicked’s climactic number, “Defying Gravity,” should feel devastating. And on some level, it does — it seals Elphaba’s fate in a battle we know she can’t win. But the sequence also has a surprisingly triumphant feeling — Elphaba no longer cares about getting approval from others; she’s finally confident in who she is and has a newfound determination to dictate her own story.
It’s a beautiful ending that hammers home Wicked’s most truly subversive quality — that the most important character in The Wizard of Oz, a story we all thought we knew top to bottom, was maybe the one whose perspective we never got until now. Wicked is now playing in theaters.