Wicked: For Good
You are either a musical theatre kid or you are not. The Wicked franchise has set out to court both tribes: the people who cry when they hear Defying Gravity, and the people who do not care for musicals but will turn up for an epic tale. When part one came out last year, the film itself nearly became a side act to its own publicity, with the slightly cringe interactions between Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo turning instantly into memes. Yet the release was an undeniable success, with ten Academy Award nominations and a spot as the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year. Since then, we have all been “holding space” for part two, expecting something bigger, grander, and accompanied by an even more emotional press tour.
Wicked: For Good has arrived, and it certainly takes up space. We are thrown straight back into the story with Thank Goodness, a musical number that feels like an overdose of colour: thousands of singers and dancers on screen, fireworks, rainbows, sparkles, gleefully excessive sets. Yes, musical theatre is meant to be extravagant – that’s the appeal – but here it’s all a little exhausting. Elphaba (Erivo) is now a fugitive as the Wicked Witch of the West, fighting for the rights of Animals who are oppressed in the authoritarian society of Oz. Galinda (Grande) has become a public figure adored by all and is closely monitored by the evil pairing of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh).
The movie soon settles into what feels like an endless chase. Galinda, in a rocky relationship with Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), chases him, as he chases Elphaba, who is chased by the Wizard’s monkeys. The story feels long, yet not a huge amount actually happens, and the issue that appears to matter most to Elphaba, the abuse of Animals in Oz, is resolved in what feels like a second. Other strands are surprisingly fleshed out instead. We spend time on Elphaba’s sister and her doomed romance with a munchkin, who, in a slightly awkward plot tur,n becomes the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Throughout, Wicked: For Good weaves in strands of the 1900 tale, remembered through the 1939 film that made Judy Garland (and her glittering red shoes) famous. Yet the familiar Oz figures drop by only briefly, skittering across the screen to give the story a shove before vanishing again. Even with two films, the script leaves loose ends, including the barely explained transformation of Elphaba’s lover into the Scarecrow (?).
There are real merits, though. Erivo is both a brilliant actor and a brilliant singer. Her No Good Deed is genuinely epic, and her romance with Fiyero is surprisingly sweet. “Now I feel wicked”, she says when she finally gets to sleep with him (the sexier material of the book and the musical has been scraped to make the film more child-friendly). Grande is less convincing. She wears a permanently worried expression, her doe eyes heavy with fake lashes, and she never quite brings the extravagant silliness and dazzle to Galinda that Kristin Chenoweth once did. Her enormous puffy dresses do much of the work of suggesting a character, but without the bubble, the wand, the pink meringues, there is not a lot left.
At times, the feature hints at something more than a tale of two witches. The tyrannical kingdom of Oz and the plight of the Animals seem designed as a nod to real-world systems of oppression and discrimination. But that allegory is barely developed. What is developed, at GREAT length, is the friendship between the two girls. In a single two-hour 30 musical, that friendship is charming, endearing; stretched across two films of roughly two hours 30 minutes each, it becomes a bit much. The bond between the two actresses is palpable, yes, but by the time you have effectively heard “I have been changed for good” for the fifth time in one form or another, the sentiment starts to dull.
What lingers at the end is less the politics, or the reframing of Oz, than the promise of another cycle of publicity. You leave anticipating more press interviews, more finger holding, and, of course, more talk of “holding space”.
Constance Ayrton
Wicked: For Good is released nationwide on 21st November 2025.
Watch the trailer for Wicked: For Good here:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
RSS