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Wicked, a just-released cinematic take on part of a long-running Broadway musical showing what happened before the story in the 1939 iconic film, The Wizard of Oz, has captivated the world’s movie-going public. It had also already notched $366 million at the global box office, according to the Daily Mail, at the start of December 2024.
It helps that it stars beloved pop princess, Ariana Grande, as the good witch Glinda. Her fans, aka “Arianators”, have swelled her Instagram followers to a total of 377 million and counting. And In tribute to the dynamism and vocal power of the film’s other leading lady, Cynthia Erivo, Forbes enthuses that when singing the hit song “Defying Gravity”, she is not playing Elphaba, she is Elphaba.
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The plot thickens!
In Wicked, Elphaba, a young woman who is misunderstood due to her unusual green skin, befriends Glinda, a popular and conventionally beautiful girl. They go on to become firm friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz.
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This is a complex friendship between two witches from their girlhood acquaintance onwards, however. Wicked explores its world through the lens of these enchantresses: Elphaba who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West, and Galinda, who becomes Glinda the Good. But their friendship reaches a crossroads after they encounter the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, IMDb summarizes.
As the following trailer promises: “Discover everything that happened before Dorothy dropped in.”
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The New York Theatre Guide details that the theatre musical on which the movie is closely based, is itself derived from the 1995 book by Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and has morphed into a cultural phenomena. This is thanks both to its moving portrayal of female friendship, and its memorable songs such as “For Good.”
Wicked engages with several highly topical and relevant social and cultural themes. For instance, Elphaba, the young wicked witch, is an outcast due to her unusual green skin, which contrasts with good witch Galinda’s more conventional, Disneyesque allure. As Elphaba herself explains in the movie: “I don’t cause commotions, I am one,” adding “some of us are just different.”
Beyond female friendship and discrimination, the Wicked plot also touches on governmental corruption, as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz turns out to be a fraud. In fact moral messages are a dominant thread, as CWI Education explores. The key message is felt to be the importance of standing up for what you believe in. But critics add to that the need to not be duped by misinformation, the importance of cultivating tolerance, and of offering help when it's needed.
Magic the bad away!
At a time when world events feel less than upbeat, it seems that alongside the star quality, vocal power, obvious rapport, and comedic timing of the two protagonists, the sheer sparkle of this film is escapism personified.
This journey offers movie-goers an authentically lean-in, magical musical fest, complete with opulent old-school acting, singing, choreography, costumes and lighting; all proving irresistible, as reviewer Christina Freeman emphasizes in her glowing appraisal on Google.
In fact, sparing no expense in pursuit of a real feeling, instead of relying on computer-generated backgrounds, Forbes reports, Universal built a life-sized Oz set, including an emerald-colored art deco train to transport the leading characters there.
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The lavish fashion, extending to the dresses worn by the movie’s female leads at the ongoing promotional screenings, is not lost on anyone. As Christian Allaire reports in Vogue, throughout the year, both stars have been paying homage to the film by appearing in character on the red carpet, Grande wearing various shades of Glinda pink, and Erivo hues of Elphaba green.This was the case at the 2024 Academy Museum Gala, where “Grande and Erivo stepped out in their most glamorously wicked looks yet,” reports Christian Allaire, in Vogue
Referenced in CWI Education’s essay, Canadian theater critic, Joseph Szekeres, writes that he originally saw the show as little more than a rite of passage story for pre-teen and teenaged girls. Ultimately, however, he decided it was intended as a distraction where you could be transported to a world with magic.
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