The ultimate musical about dorm room essentials and etiquette signals its inspirational intentions on a wondrous dry erase storyboard when an underground campus scandal threatens to silence outspoken professors, prompting two mismatched roomies to rally together for a common cause. It’s also the prequel to The Wizard of Oz about young witches at a crossroads of magic school Shiz University, the activist roommate going green while the other mindlessly revels in her pink bubblegum popularity. This tidy trapper keeper of Broadway-adapted bliss, John M. Chu’s Wicked: Part I (A) juggles the poppies, rainbows and yellow bricks of its spellbinding origin story while celebrating its vibrant cinematic connections to Victor Fleming’s 1939 classic with lavish set pieces, buoyant production numbers and, most of all, an iconic central duo metaphorically stepping into Dorothy’s shoes. The splendid odd couple at the heart of this tuneful tale represents no easy-bake coven; rather it’s a rarefied once-in-a-lifetime collision of talent. Cynthia Erivo as outcast Elphaba and Ariana Grande as populist Glinda slay their respective roles, their Stephen Schwartz songs such as “The Wizard and I” and “Defying Gravity” and the machinations of the mid-tempo melodrama. Splitting the film adaptation into two installments gives Chu a delicate opportunity to better excavate the characters’ relationships and showcase sequences faithfully fused from Gregory Maguire’s novel and L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The adaptation experiment works brilliantly and brings the story full circle. It’s only half the story, and yet there is a complete movie arc in this single act with the young ladies discovering agency and friendship to a rousing conclusion and one-year intermission. The prequel to a prequel as it were shines equally in a near-silent moment of undeniable power and resilience as it does in its most elaborate song-and-dance sequences. There is also a stunning allegory afoot for those who seek a tonic elixir antidote to grim political poison in the air, with an undeniably prescient “rise up” drumbeat piercing the artifice. Jonathan Bailey is a charming supporting character as love interest Fiyero, bringing rizz to Shiz via a standout “Dancing Through Life” number with an inventive choreographed sequence within the university’s circular rotating library. The filmmakers have clearly thought through the best and most creative ways for each and every beat to come through, emotionally and sonically. The film’s crafts from the whimsical costume designs to the elaborate production environments and soaring underscore provide wall-to-wall wonder. Most of all, this musical fantasy is a genuine triumph of casting, with Grande acing her assignment as both comically oblivious but daffily lovable and Erivo offering a slow-burn reveal and belting to the emerald heavens. If I could pass Chu a note or two, it would be that some of the CGI could be less fussy and the choreography could be more Fosse. Nearly three quarters of a century after cinematic Oz world-building began, the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch conjure some rousing revisionist history and extend the franchise in one of the year’s most enchanting experiences.
