Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande shine in good-enough Wicked: For Good

There’s a story I like to tell about a high school trip I took to Broadway, barrelling through all the hits I’d never even heard of, let alone seen. But the highlight was definitely Wicked: the show-stopping, Tony-winning Wizard of Oz reinvention that had all the more musically well-heeled among us giddy with excitement. 

So when we arrived at the show-stoppingest moment of all — wicked witch Elphaba lifting off the stage as she belted the lead track, Defying Gravity, simultaneously wrapping up the pre-Wizard of Oz backstory that turned her wicked and communicating to the audience her cathartic self-acceptance just before the curtains closed — I was floored. 

So floored that I stood up, walked out and waited outside. And waited. Until 10 minutes later, when classmates came out to find and inform me it wasn’t, in fact, over. That was just the intermission.

Despite hearing all the songs any casual fan may be dimly aware of — and despite seeing the most technically impressive and finale-worthy moment in modern stage history — there was still somehow a whole hour of Wicked to go.

That's an obstacle Jon M. Chu’s feature adaptation now also has to grapple with: a problem endemic to the musical from its adaptation from Gregory Maguire's dourly political book into Winnie Holzman's seriously front-loaded Broadway spectacle. Not only do all the bangers reside in the first half, but so, too, do almost all the actually compelling parts of the story. 

In Wicked: Part 1, which hit screens last year, that results in stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande being offered a meaty and focused first half, introducing and largely resolving its themes of innate goodness, self-determination and resisting fascism.

But that recommences in Wicked: For Good with a narrative that operates more as wink-and-a-nod fan fiction than it does as an interesting, self-contained story.

This isn’t to say the much anticipated followup to 2024’s Oscar-nominated first outing is a disappointment. At least not an abject one. It’s more or less competent, buoyed by undeniably incredible singing and framed by charmingly fantastical set design. 

Coming in not too long after the aforementioned show-stopping moment, we’re already well into the story of Elphaba (Erivo) when For Good picks up.

She is already alienated from the exclusive Ozian boarding school where she hoped to find acceptance. She has already encountered the civil rights plight of talking animals forced out of their positions in society by the mercurial, mysterious Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). 

She has already struggled against and then found friendship with ditzy “good witch” Glinda (Grande). She has already chosen to fight against the duplicitous, conman Wizard in order to right the wrongs the dictatorial regime leader is surreptitiously instigating throughout the land. 

And most importantly, the central theme of the story has been set up and cemented: that 1939's The Wizard of Oz’s supposed villain was really a misunderstood martyr, willing to accept hate in order to thanklessly save the world.

Understandably carried over from the first instalment are the performances. Erivo once again shows off her incredible vocal talents — perhaps the best of any performer in a modern movie musical. You can virtually feel every run inching her closer and closer to the Oscar that would see her attain well-earned Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning EGOT status. 

And Grande exhibits perhaps the most fascinatingly layered showing by any actor coming to the role of Glinda. Needing to simultaneously balance the flighty, airheaded countenance of her character while also crooning emotionally conflicted, technically proficient and genuinely funny lyrics, her already near-impossible task only grew more difficult — and, therefore, more impressive — this time around.