Walking into Flix Brewhouse, we immediately started freaking out over the giant green balloon arch and “Wicked” poster. It’s like it was set up for us. It was the most swankified place in town, with Lily wearing pink and Morgen wearing green, so we begged an employee and had a full-blown photoshoot embracing our Wickedness before we settled in for two hours and 40 minutes of movie magic.
That’s genuinely the only way to describe “Wicked” the movie: magic. In every aspect, “Wicked” oozes wonderment. It is one of the grandest (and greenest) movies we have seen this year. It aims to be big and bold, celebrating a Broadway classic. With that grandeur, the big screen is the only appropriate place. So many theater geeks, including ourselves, have been listening to this soundtrack for ages, so the movie had much to live up to – and it delivered. It took that classic Broadway charm and expanded upon it.
Still, for authenticity reasons and simply because there is something magical about the stage version, we would have loved this to be a pro shot.
Pro-shots, recordings of the stage version of the musical, allow shows to be viewed in their original form—the form theater geeks want to see them in. We simply argue for more pro-shots in general. Going to a Broadway show is financially inaccessible to many, but going to your local movie theater for a pro shot is much more accessible, so Broadway’s powerful performances can spread nationwide.
However, our yearning for a pro shot didn’t detract from our enjoyment of the movie. From the casting to the setting, this adaptation of Wicked was powerful and fun.
The casting directors pushed many boundaries with their choices for roles. One of our favorite choices for this movie was to have disabled actresses play both young and current Nessarose. Marissa Bode, who plays grown-up Nessarose, and Cesily Collette Taylor, who plays young Nesssarose, are wheelchair users in real life and break-out stars of this film. This is the first time in Wicked’s 21-year run that a wheelchair user has played Nessarose.
The film displays ableism from both family and friends so well. We get scenes where people mistakenly believe Nessarose needs much more help and protection than she does, followed by screams of protest from her and her older sister, Elphaba. We also get a beautiful dancing scene between Boq, played by Ethan Slater, and Nessarose. In this scene, Slater doesn’t just move around her chair, leaving Bode to do nothing, like we often see happen with wheelchair choreography, but instead, both are moving as one, and it is beautiful. This is powerful because it shows — surprise — people in wheelchairs can dance.
Having the character and actress share a disability allows the movie to get it right and display it authentically, allowing many wheelchair users to see themselves in Nessarose.
Based on this casting, one of our biggest hopes is that it translates to the stage. We hope to see more actresses playing Nessarose who are wheelchair users. Despite the many problems people bring up – the fact that the character Nessarose walks in the second half or the fact that most, if not all, Broadway theaters are not ADA-compliant, this should happen. These problems can and should be worked through. With modern-day technology and support, there is no excuse why theater is not open to all. Let this be a call to action for theater lovers everywhere to make Broadway an accessible and open space.
However, social media and theatre lovers have much to discuss regarding the casting, comparing the film’s cast to Broadway casting, especially regarding the two main actresses: Cynthia Eviro and Ariana Grande. Comparison is the enemy of happiness; it causes many actresses to be unfairly critiqued. Every single actress who has played Elphaba or Glinda over the years has brought something different and unique. We should appreciate the joys Cynthia Eviro and Ariana Grande brought to the film.
Both performances, like pink and green, felt extremely powerful and went with the film. They excelled in acting and singing the stories of these characters, and their frenemy dynamic was often hilarious and genuine. They bought into the strangeness and charm of Oz and a movie musical, boldly fitting into its peculiar setting.
The setting feels grounded in reality and understandable (with little exposition) but mythical, as Oz should. The film luxuriates in sweeping pans over the brightly-colored Munchkin land, in hallway shots through the Hogwarts-esque Shiz University, with details galore abounding — wonders like we have never seen. But the setting also feels lived-in, rather than a set, with the setting’s history shining through in little details, such as a stone bust of the Wizard falling to reveal a portrait of animal professors or the creation of the yellow brick road.
We were glad the setting and lore of the world were expanded upon in the film. With more time to explore it, the film went into more depth about Oz’s politics, specifically surrounding the animals and the Wizard. But still, at points, we felt like we were on that Emerald City bullet train: going really, really fast and unable to see the finer points of some key parts: animal politics, especially regarding The Great Drought.
We’re hopeful that we get deeper into that in part two, which comes out in November 2025. The film’s future is unlimited, but there’s a definish chance that the two of us will be seated in theaters when it releases.
