I saw Wicked: For Good at Hollywood’s legendary Chinese Theatre (where The Wizard of Oz had its premiere in 1939), a setting grand enough to match the scale of this long-awaited final chapter in Universal’s lavish two-part adaptation. From the moment the film began—with that gorgeous vintage Universal Studios logo flickering to life—I felt the production tipping its hat to cinema history, reminding us that this universe has deep, shimmering roots stretching back to 1939.
Reviewed by Allan R. Ellenberger for The Hollywoodland Revue
And later, when the scene shifted to the haunted forest and the gnarled trees shrouded in shadows, the first thing that popped into my head was MGM’s The Wizard of Oz itself, as if director Jon M. Chu was acknowledging that he was treading on hallowed ground before being bold enough to do it his own way.
The story, continuing seamlessly from its predecessor, Wicked: Part One, brings Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) to the turning point that would change the Land of Oz forever. As the simmering political tensions of Shiz finally boil over into open rebellion, Elphaba is coming into her outlaw persona, while Glinda struggles with the glittering prison of public expectation. These two women, who found an unexpected friendship, are being pushed by the plot into the fates that the audience has long known were in store for them, but it remains engaging because the heart of the film’s drama is grounded and human.
Wicked: For Good, more than anything, manages to distill the classical Oz mythology into its story without letting it overwhelm the story of these two women. The stage show carefully avoided the presence of Dorothy, but Chu acknowledged her with a light touch. Dorothy is onscreen, standing on the Yellow Brick Road with Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, but we never actually see her face. She is given a single line—calling after the Wizard to wait so she can return home to Kansas—but even that is handled sparingly. Chu, wisely, knew that Dorothy had to be present without ever being the focus. She is a ripple across the water.
Some of these choices are inspired. The Cowardly Lion, only a cub on the stage, accuses Elphaba in a surprisingly moving scene of tearing him away from the life he knew and setting him on the path to cowardice. The Tin Man and the Scarecrow also get soft integrations into the story, each being introduced as characters hinted at in the film. These details don’t steal focus from the main drama, but they feel like organic flourishes for longtime fans of the story.
The new musical numbers are mostly integrated smoothly into Stephen Schwartz’s legendary score. “No Place Like Home,” a new ballad for Elphaba, reclaims Dorothy’s most famous line and recontextualizes it as a battle cry to fight for Oz instead of escaping it. “The Girl in the Bubble,” for Glinda, is a wistful exploration of a woman protected by privilege and illusion. Grande has one of the film’s (and her own) strongest emotional moments with this song, and she does it with a clarity and rawness that we have not seen from her before. Grande, as in the first film, continues to turn the heads of critics who predicted she was miscast by delivering a performance that is both stunningly vocally pure and warm, measured, and honest in its acting. Erivo matches her with an explosion of rage and grief that gives centering emotional truth to Elphaba’s final moments of moral revelation.
The big finish, of course, comes with “For Good,” the near-mythic duet that is perhaps the heart of the stage production. I was moved more than I expected to be, even knowing the song was coming. The delivery of the song by Erivo and Grande is like an admission that they have been changed in ways they never could have imagined, and the core of the number (“So much of me is made of what I learned from you”) carries even more weight because of their vocals on screen, like the two characters (and perhaps the two performers) are saying goodbye not just to each other, but to an entire shared journey.
Reviews, predictably, have been mixed. The show’s overall emotional heft, dazzling spectacle, and chemistry of the two leads have been praised by many. Some, however, were critical of the excessive two-part structure, or found that the franchise had cranked its syrup quotient up too high. But even in its more mixed reviews, there was one point that was nearly universal: the craftsmanship on display is undeniable, and Grande, in particular, is finding herself the kind of praise that is the hallmark of a defining moment in an entertainer’s career.
I will admit there was a point of poignancy to watching Wicked: For Good at the heart of Hollywood. The story of Wicked is a story about perception, and identity, and the narratives that we build around ourselves and are given, sometimes. An especially fitting message for a city of illusions. While it is hard to believe that the film will win over the naysayers who were never invested in the dark, grittier reimagining of Oz to begin with, it still does an excellent job at providing a satisfying conclusion to a well-loved musical.
Wicked: For Good is an emotionally soaring, gripping finale, gorgeous, well-staged, and buoyed by performances that sing with an honest warmth. It gives this two-part musical a heartfelt bookend, playing homage to the Broadway sensation while cementing its own story in cinema history. As the final notes faded at the Chinese Theatre and the audience exhaled, I was filled with that rare certainty that this was worth the journey. The story of Elphaba and Glinda ends not with spectacle, but with grace.
And, true to its title, it lingers long after—for good.
Ariana Grande (Glinda), director Jon M. Chu and Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba). Photo Credit: Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
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