When a movie offers no surprises for me, I usually ding it; however, Wicked proves an exception by meeting all my basic expectations. I expected Cynthia Erivo to make a great Elphaba, a variation of Oz author L. Frank Baum’s name given to the wicked witch in Gregory Maguire’s novel, adapted into a raging hit Broadway play by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz. Erivo long ago demonstrated singing pipes on Broadway, winning a Tony for The Color Purple while her Oscar nominated performance in Harriet shows the range required by film, a variation of big emotions and small reactions that round out a character. She does it again in Wicked, only behind green make up. I also expected good work from Ariana Grande, a pop singer yes, but one with a musical stage background and comic chops demonstrated on shows like Saturday Night Live. I always expect to enjoy Michelle Yeoh whether playing good or nasty, and I figured her director from Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu, could handle bright, colorful, large-scale dynamics. I expect a big Broadway hit to turn into a huge, splashy, over-the-top movie taking advantage of all the special effects that money can buy, and Wicked delivers. It also throws in a trait I expected not to like—with the phrase “Part 1” thrown into the title; the I understand the monetary allure of that Lord of the Rings-Dune-Harry Potter-Avengers-and so on trend to drag stories on for years, I prefer a shorter time between beginning and end. Sure, I mostly know what happens in the Wicked finale because I saw the play on stage and resolved my negative expectations about how it changed the nature of a classic story and film in which a witch terrorize a young girl lost in a magical land. It turns out that upending the story offers a valuable lesson about not getting too set in your ways—or--expectations.
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…and on that personal note about upending pre-set notions, The Wizard of Oz movie hit two benchmarks in my life with Glinda the Good versus the Wicked Witch of the West. Prior to seeing the 1939 classic on television, I focused movie viewing to monsters from Universal Studios: the Wolf Man, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, all those guys. My mom shrugged her shoulders and let me watch since the monsters never disrupted my sleep. Then she made me watch a special Wizard of Oz holiday screening. I woke up screaming. The Wicked Witch of the West gave me my first nightmare. Some years later in a new house, my dad planted a bunch of trees and put a special one in the middle, naming it Glinda. Glinda grew into a good, tall pine and years later, I married my husband Fred under her. And now a story comes along to tell me my nightmare is good and my wedding tree bad? And yet the Wicked writers cleverly resolve those inconsistencies, melding into an existing story and showing that long-held views just might come from having too little information or not bothering to consider other sides to a multifaceted situation.
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