‘Wicked: Part II’: The Great Musical Spectacular Ends With a Thrilling Political Allegory About Good and Truth | Cinema: previews and reviews

In a country governed by an almost octogenarian with childish impulses, a musical based on a founding myth like The Wizard of Oz the one who spoke of the dangers of a lying and xenophobic leader whose supposed magic consists in manipulating reality with the power of lies. That musical is Wicked: Part IIwhich closes the great show of its first part with an exciting political allegory on good and truth and which confirms Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as the unforgettable Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.

Without this we cannot explain the United States or the history of cinema The Wizard of Oz, classic from the golden age of Hollywood based on a story by L. Frank Baum in whose fantasy universe some of the great American genres converge, the street movie, musical cinema… We associate the latter with bright emotions until occasionally darkness appears through its cracks. Wicked: Part II It is located in a successful pizpireto tradition. However, even if its appearance suffers from the aesthetic steamroller of Disney musicals, the final result is stimulating. In Wicked: Part II The opulent colored bubble functions as a Trojan horse capable of speaking to a young audience not about good witches and bad witches, but about the friendship and redemption of two sorceresses – one denigrated for her green skin and the other adored for her pink aura – confronted in a country with Orwellian tones where control over dissidence and the power of propaganda reign.

Both directed as a sumptuous chromatic choreography by a determined Jon M. Chu, in the first part there were the best musical numbers, especially those of The Magician and I, What is this feeling?, Popular and, above all, Defying gravity, which closed the first act in style. This second part, also based on the successful Broadway musical, inspired in turn by the novel published in the nineties by Gregory Maguire – a revision of the original story that questioned Elphaba’s origin and her misfortune as a trigger for her illness – has new themes that allow it to move away from its references and set its own direction.

The alchemy between Erivo and Grande is a key factor for the success of the first part which continues in the second. The distribution of Evil It is one of their greatest successes, thanks to the potential of both performers. Erivo’s voice is overwhelming, but everyone grows inside Wicked: Part II es Grande, who performed the Dorothy-Judy Garland anthem at the last Oscar gala Over the rainbow literally dressed in the red chapinas of the classic, fetish par excellence of the unsurpassed fantasy of Victor Fleming’s film.

Among the best decisions of Wicked: Part II There is no need to fall into the temptation of breaking the magic of that milestone of cinema and technicolor. Dorothy is the key to the plot, her story runs through the entire second chapter, but her adventure is an ellipsis punctuated by well-drawn narrative details about the tornado, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow. In a questionable decision, the red ruby ​​shoes were replaced with the diamond ones from the original book. Wicked: Part II It barely makes use of the inventiveness of the classic, even if its imprint permeates everything; From the beginning, on the green face of Elphaba, an idea taken from Fleming’s film to show the public the possibilities of Technicolor which almost a century later is capable of taking on new meanings.

Wicked: Part II it opens with the construction of the yellow brick road by slave animals, to which explicit reference is even made The great dictator, by Charlie Chaplin, when the Wizard of Oz played by Jeff Goldblum boasts of his ability to manipulate reality. The power of fake news, which served to brand Elphaba as an enemy of the people or to expel the animals from Oz, are central to the plot, as are the temptations of vanity or misfortune as a source of evil. But Evil Above all her readings and fireworks displays, it is the story of how two opposite women change their destiny through friendship.