Female Film Critics 24/375
Cynthia Erivo received the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s 18th annual Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence in Film. The prestigious award, which benefits the film festival’s year-round educational programs, was presented on Dec. 4 at a black-tie dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara in Santa Barbara, California.
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Touching on themes of identity, rejection, the corrupting influence of power, animal rights, sacrifice, and the capacity of friendship, the PG rated Wicked For Good sends ideal messages for all ages that reflect our current times. The casting of this movie is utter perfection with Jeff Goldblum, Michelle Yeoh and Sexiest Man Alive, Jonathan Bailey reprising their roles. But it’s the sisterhood between Grande and Erivo, both on and off the screen, that makes Wicked For Good wicked good.
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In Part 2, the now demonized Elphaba known as the Wicked Witch of the West has been exiled from Oz and is desperately fighting for the freedom of silenced animals and trying to expose the lies of The Wizard. While Glinda has been appointed as “The Good Witch” and a comfort to Oz, she is internally struggling, missing Elpheba, her best friend and being part of a charade to villainize her. Now unfortunately, Wicked: For Good fails to defy gravity like the first film, BUT as whole, the essential parts of the story are wonderful. There’s a beautiful message about friendship, love, acceptance, and being cautious of false heroes.
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A theatrical adaptation of Wicked debuted in 2003, eventually becoming one of the top-grossing musicals in Broadway history. Now, its film adaptation appears, leading audiences back to the Emerald City and the first clashes and collaborations of the green-skinned Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and the blond socialite Glinda (pop star Ariana Grande). Directed by Jon M. Chu, Wicked unfolds with the pop and panache of an interactive storybook, its music, costumes, art direction, and production design crafting a rich theatrical experience. It’s also nearly three hours long—and only half the story of the stage show, ending essentially at the musical’s first act, which runs a little over an hour onstage. Those unfamiliar with the book or the musical (and I’m one of them) might wonder where in the world the story can go from here. (Part Two is set to arrive in November 2025.)
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Never underestimate the phenomenal power of L. Frank Baum’s Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Wicked is one of the few films that more than lives up to the hype and hoopla. Director John M. Chu’s screen adaptation of the Broadway show is already a movie megahit, joining two inspiring Grammy-winning divas as they delve into the backstory behind Victor Fleming’s 1939 classic. This musical prequel, loosely based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, begins just after Dorothy dissolves Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. As the gleeful Munchkins celebrate, Good Witch Glinda (Ariana Grande) floats in. “Weren’t you and Elphaba once friends?” inquires a youngster. Indeed they were.
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The wand has been passed. Director Jon M. Chu is now the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He has taken a Tony Award winning musical, based on a beloved book and timeless movie, and made immersive big screen magic. For those who have managed to avoid anything Wicked in the last 20 years, this film adaptation is the backstory of the characters of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.. Chu has paid homage to nostalgia from the opening graphics to the technicolor land of Oz, but has kicked everything up a notch by taking advantage of today’s technology without airbrushing out the awe. Wicked has courage, heart and a brain, and something for all audiences.
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Wicked has been a beloved stage production. Now you can see the story on the big screen in theaters with the whole family during the holiday season. Visionary director Jon M. Chu inspires audiences with a truly magical retelling of the emotional Broadway hit. The film’s nearly three hour runtime allows for effective character development while moving forward impressively quickly and even leaving you wanting more. Thankfully, this is only the first part of the adaptation and fans can look forward to part 2 next year.n
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It has been a long time since a stage musical has been transposed to cinema with as much skill and depth as Wicked. Based upon Geoffrey Maguire’s novel, Wicked the movie delves deeply in its extended runtime into the themes of how someone becomes wicked. The superb cast puts their best into the dancing, acting, and singing. Wicked is a movie musical of the highest order and one of the best in cinema releases of the year. The magic and the passion for big bold enchanting movies is real.
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Director Anthony Chen adapts Alexander Maksik’s novel A Marker to Measure Drift in Drift, a film about a young woman drifting on the edge of starvation a self-destruction on an unnamed Greek island after a profound tragedy. Cynthia Erivo plays Jacqueline, a London educated Liberian who has lost everything in her life and is living hand to mouth sleeping rough by the sea. She wanders the summer tourist populated streets and beaches during the day hoping to find food and possibly small amounts of money from the garish holiday makers. At nights as she makes a bed of sand filled plastic bags, she drifts into her memories both good and increasingly distressing.
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Drift is an astonishingly confident and deeply moving film, an unarguable career highlight for both Cynthia Erivo and Alia Shawkat and further evidence that Anthony Chen is one of the most important filmmakers working today. The way that Chen reveals horrors is a virtual masterclass in how to sensitively depict certain acts of violence on screen. This is, in fact, one of the film’s strongest elements: to demand “more” reveals perhaps just how depressingly used to trauma porn we have become, expecting to be spoon fed real-world horrors rather than using basic screen literacy skills to apply our broader general knowledge to poetic allusion.
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