WICKED PART 1 A LONG FLIGHT OF COLORFUL FANCY

 

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked Part 1

By Dominique Paul Noth

That famous revolving globe – Universal’s opening logo – spun green. The closing five minutes of this 260-minutes movie were packed screen after screen with the real heroes of the new Munchkin universe -- technicians, designers, costumers, animal pretenders, tech experts, audio mixers, production crews, special effects masters and three screens worth of tireless dancers, all  extra busy in this land of Oz.

Courtesy of Covid and other delays, Wicked Part 1 represents years of accomplished production, including fits and starts. And yes, this is just the Broadway musical’s first act, somewhat reinvented for the expansive possibilities of screen magic and the old studio insistence on character development. Part two, tentatively titled Wicked: for Good, is scheduled for release November of 2025.

The break into two for what theater audiences gulped in one sitting obviously lengthens this meditation on what happened before and after Dorothy got her red shoes.

But the movie doesn’t tread on MGM’s 1939 commercial touches (yellow brick road, squeaky voices, famous songs) except as obvious inspiration.  Using Frank Baum’s original stories – and also throwing most of them into the trash bin – Wicked Part 1 carves its own roads. That and invention make the break into two films emotionally right, even if a bit like milking the golden cow, since part one is a box office success.

Now the first part can focus on the positive aspects of Elphaba and why she has erroneously gone down in (fictional) history as the Wicked Witch of the West. The movie concentrates on Elphaba from troubled childhood. Her sorcery gifts grow out of anger over how her green skin is treated. She moves through Shiz (the University -- I love the name) as she learns to protect herself from the crooked society of Oz.

On Oscar night March 2, expect the film to clean up in the technical categories – if there is any justice in the movie industry. Director Jon M. Chu   (who demonstrated technical mastery in Crazy Rich Asians) should not be dismissed as a mere technician for his command of the color palette, the spinning choreography, the juggling of sets and actors and the studied  attention to emotional crescendos. It took artistic sensibility to control all this, and the length of the movie may be a bit much, but you can’t say it wasn’t purposeful.  Much of the movie is just enjoying how well the money was spent – and yes, that is partly a criticism.

Within the film there is also a powerful performance by Cynthia Erivo, not only making us feel for her sadness, her lip-clenched anger and her wistful miles behind her dusky green (her skin was named Cynthis Green by the studio specialists to separate it from the brighter and subtler shades of green that are part of the fantastic kaleidoscope palette).  But Erivo is also a great singer, not just in the big notes but in the quieter separation and control she brings to the gentler passages. 

Movie singing is always suspect because of all the lip-sync tricks that can be pulled, but this is a distinctive voice backed by a distinctive mind, so quite all right for Oscar to nominate her for best actress.

As Glinda, who becomes a better person when she drops a vowel from her Galinda name, Ariana Grande is up for a best supporting actress Oscar.  But the film vignettes by the most famous Broadway stars, Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel, remind everyone in the audience that the hair-tossing blonde is not only a traditional Hollywood trope but that it was Chenoweth who established that impish selfish nastiness (with a bigger voice) that Grande is only echoing. Erivo is more original as Elphaba (no offense to Menzel who did impossible things onstage while flying looks normal on the big screen).

The musical had two giant hit songs -- “Popular” and “Defying Gravity” -- but song composer Stephen Schwarz has produced an engaging back-set of tunes to move the story along and give director Chu plenty of places to expand.  He elongates not only the fight scenes between Elphaba and the shallow Galinda, but the hand-arching  dance movement that captures the moment the two become friends.

Then there is “Dancing Through Life.”  It has little story purpose but it spins wheels of dancers and likeable co-star Jonathan Daily through loopy-doops in one of the film’s extended (maybe too extended) sequences.

The film also features Michelle Yeoh as Madame Morrible, the Shiz Dean of Sorcery, and Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard – quality personalities who may do something more meaningful in part two.  Smoothly effective as a voice actor for the talking goat professor is Peter Dinklage.

The entire concept makes the popular musical look deeper than just hit songs, and I think even children will seize on this. Its talking animals threatened with extinction and its reversal of our expectation about the school matron and the famous wizard raise important questions about judging by appearance, what evil really is and what standing up for your beliefs entails. Director Chu plays well with too many toys, but he keeps the meaning lurking, and that is no small accomplishment.

About the author: Noth has been a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic as well as editor in charge of its arts and entertainment staff. He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives still at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly. A member of the American Theatre Critics Association at its inception, he also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee. 

DYLAN’S METEORIC RISE EVEN MORE METEORIC IN FINE ‘COMPLETE UNKNOWN’

Elle Fanning and Timothee Chalomet in A Complete Unknown

 By Dominique Paul Noth

While it tracks closely to events in Bob Dylan’s life from when he arrived in New York in 1961 until he turned to electric guitars four years later at a famous rowdy concert at the Newport Jazz Festival, A Complete Unknown is lovable mythology.

This was a prolific period for Dylan, who remains a vital force in 2025.  Composers  have bursts of creativity and this was one, somewhat compressed for filmic purposes -- “Blowing in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone," "It's All Over, Baby Blue,"  “Don’t Think Twice.” 

Dylan filled notebooks with his ideas. The film may speed the time frame, but it brings  alive song after song from these early years  – along with the lovers and hangers on. Mythology or not, it is an unassailable tribute to his music and his perverse individuality.

 Whether he cooperated or not, whether he told the filmmakers he had no trouble with flat-out invention, they freely analyzed his personality and impact to tell the story. Legends as well as truth affect the editing, the visual choices, the songs chosen and other methods by which we are manipulated.

This movie is thoroughly enjoyable, even  romantic and expertly engineered by director James Mangold. No ground-breaking but solid film-making with a few hiccups, even making us think real rather than computer generated those far-away rows at outdoor concerts.

It is also authentic in its feeling for the times, in the dress and storefronts in the Greenwich Village of the early 1960s.  I can testify to that with authority, since I spent the same years right there as a folk singer performer in group sessions at the clubs and cafes of the era.

This is also the best work I have seen from Timothée Chalamet, star of another Oscar-nominated film, Dune: Part 2, and probably the hottest leading man right now in movieland.  Not only does  he become a believable Dylan imitator on guitar and harmonica, he sings much like Dylan, as he has proven on NBC’s “SNL.”

Interestingly, he has mastered the mumbled wry speech, inscrutable behavior and constant smoking of the real Dylan.   But in singing, his enunciation is as clear as Frank Sinatra’s – something not always true about Dylan even though I love his lyrics. Director Mangold can also not resist thrusting the famous Chalamet face  before the camera in scenes where we think of the actor first rather than Dylan.

The troubadour’s fan base is no longer as cleanly divided between his acoustic guitar time and electric surge but the acoustic civil rights anthem, “The Times They Are A-Changing,” is a big part of the movie.  It may not have galvanized as rapidly as the movie portrays (with audience singing it at first hearing) but it galvanized nonetheless.  (If there still is a split in the public over  his now standard power electronics, it is mainly about being able to hear the lyrics at his concerts.) 

Much of the movie is about camaraderie and duets among musicians, some of it true, some invented, including a moment when good friend Johnny Cash hands Dylan his acoustic guitar. There are great re-creations of Dylan harmonizing with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro, Oscar nominated for best supporting actress, who has her own fine non-Baez voice and is appealing as she is attracted to and spars with Dylan).

Much of the script is fixated on the romantic triangle involving Elle Fanning as the fictionally created Sylvie Russo (Dylan’s now deceased girlfriend and cover album companion was the closely named Suze Rotolo). Fanning communicates the wistful and political effect the character has on Dylan, even as the director chooses to have her well up with tears each time she sees Dylan perform with Baez.

The prominent sub-protagonist is Pete Seeger, and the “Wimoweh” sequence confirms how brilliantly Ed Norton has captured the facial looks, walking style, singalong appeal and even the banjo picking of the late Seeger, who played a key role in Dylan’s explosion on the folk scene. Norton also has a best supporting actor nomination.

Norton as Seeger also serves as the older generation folk purist finger-wagging at Dylan, again a slightly exaggerated version for dramatic purposes.  Seeger himself in interviews denied that he took an ax to Dylan’s electric guitar cables.  The movie compromises on the legend by showing him eying the ax and being stopped by his wife.

Dylan may not have exploded quite so amazingly on the folk scene, but within two years his ability to write modern songs in the vein of folk music indeed made him a force – the same force that makes him the only songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

 You don’t have to love Bob Dylan to enjoy this film, though it sure helps – as long as Dylan purists don’t nitpick everything. Mangold has concocted events from his life to convey the original cultural sensation. In terms of best actor choice, Oscar will have a tough time choosing between Chalamet and Adrien Brody in The Brutalist. 

About the author: Noth has been a professional journalist since the 1960s, first as national, international and local news copy editor at The Milwaukee Journal, then for almost two decades the paper’s film and drama critic as well as editor in charge of its arts and entertainment staff.  He was tapped by the publishers of the combining Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for special projects and as first online news producer before voluntarily departing in the mid-1990s to run online news seminars and write on public affairs. From 2002 to 2013 he ran the Milwaukee Labor Press as editor. It served as the Midwest’s largest home-delivered labor newspaper, with archives still at milwaukeelabor.org.  In that role he won top awards yearly.  A member of the American Theatre Critics Association at its inception, he also reviews theater for Urban Milwaukee.