“Wicked,” which debuted on November 22, has been a hot topic of conversation among students at Latin, especially with members of the theater community who were fans of the original show. The biggest concern fans had going in was if the movie was going to honor the source material, and the praise I’ve heard in the past weeks is an indication of just how well it did.
“Wicked” has been a major success worldwide, having made (as of December 9) $457 million worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing movie based on a musical, trailing only the 2008 rom-com “Mamma Mia!”
The plot centers around Elphaba, played by Cynthia Erivo, a young woman with green skin who eventually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. At the heart of the story is her unlikely friendship with Glinda, played by Ariana Grande, a popular (and blonde) witch she is forced to room with at Shiz University.
“Wicked” is two hours and 40 minutes long—10 minutes longer than the entirety of the stage musical. Part two, which comes out in November of 2025, will be a similar length, making the two movies combined over twice the length of the original show.
The long runtime was the biggest point of contention among viewers.
Sophomore Fia Bondy said, “Halfway through the movie I was like, is this going to pick up? I don’t know how they made it two and a half hours.”
However, many of the film’s fans did not take issue with the film’s length. Senior Aislinn Curry said, “Everything was needed; it didn’t feel like it was going on forever.”
The musical numbers adapted directly from the stage production helped make the film shine. Some favorites among Latin students were “Defying Gravity,” “The Wizard and I” and “Dancing Through Life.” Aislinn said she enjoyed “anytime Cynthia Erivo sang.”
Fia, Aislinn, and sophomore Stella Tate Ricciardi-Fitzpatrick all shared a similar sentiment on a flaw of the film: The colors were too muted. “It was so desaturated,” Stella Tate said. “If [they] just [brought] out the colors a little bit more, it would have made it more mystical.”
Aislinn agreed, noting, “I would have liked the colors to be better, more technicolor and vibrant.”
Despite the underwhelming color grading, Stella Tate and Aislinn, active members of the Upper School Theater Department, agreed that “Wicked” is one of the best movie adaptations of a musical.
Aislinn said, “What helped [the movie] was the choreography and having people from musical theater.”
Stella Tate said, “One of the things that Jon Chu did a really good job of was paying homage to the stage version but also the original content, referencing the sleeping poppies, ‘Omaha,’ and songs from ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ among others.”
Among theater communities at large, there is general agreement that the film absolutely succeeded, breathing life into a technicolor classic. Stella Tate said, “Wicked [is] what musicals being turned into movies should look like.”
