Wicked Superfans Rejoice—Yes, the Movie Really Is That Good (2024)

As a musical theatre kid who grew up during the heyday of Idina Menzel’s stage career, I’ve long resented composer Stephen Schwartz for how his score forced its leads to blow their voices night after night.

Menzel’s high belt, her legendary “Defying Gravity” battle cry, influenced a generation of musical performers—and not necessarily for the better. To this day, the Elphaba’d rasp at the bottom of Menzel’s voice keeps me from enjoying the original Broadway cast album of Wicked.

When it was confirmed in 2021 that Cynthia Erivo would step into the role of Elphaba for the film adaptation, my heart fluttered. Maybe this would be an Elphaba that I could root for, a superb vocalist whose high notes wouldn’t screech against the demands of Schwartz’s melodies.

Maybe this Wicked would make good on the promise—and, to my eye, previously untapped potential—of novelist Gregory Maguire’s genius Wizard of Oz prequel.

Meanwhile, over on the pink side of the Wicked equation, theatre fans and pop culture pundits have been squawking for three years about Ariana Grande’s Glinda the Good Witch. I can’t tell you how many slightly irritating conversations I’ve had about her casting. “Really?” well-meaning friends have mused, clicking their tongues at the pop princess’s seemingly random move into movie musicals. “I just don’t see it.”

I’ll tell you what I told them: Grande is exactly the right person to play Glinda, a soprano with impressive musical theatre chops and laugh-out-loud comic timing.

I spent my teenage years as a musical theatre student adoring the score of “13,” the musical in which Grande made her 2008 Broadway debut. Long car rides through the suburbs were often soundtracked by Grande—not her pop discography, but her fleeting solos in Jason Robert Brown’s charming musical about becoming a teenager.

When I graduated from my program in 2016, I (badly) sang Grande’s solo in “Brand New You.” My appreciation for her ability to act a song runs deep.

More embarrassingly, I have to admit I grew up watching a lot of Victorious, the Nickelodeon sitcom that vaulted Grande’s fame from Broadway message boards to the living rooms of tweens around the world. I preferred episodes that centred on her character, an eccentric triple threat named Cat, and I desperately wanted her fiery red hair. “Give It Up,” Grande’s big Victorious duet with co-star Liz Gillies, may not have had a huge impact on global charts, but the track went triple platinum in my parents’ house.

I saw Wicked for the first time on Friday morning, and as soon as the end credits began to roll, I purchased another ticket for Sunday.