Wicked – wickedly good

Well, the film year started with a surprise – a BIG surprise! Wicked was far, Far, FAR better than I expected. I’m arguably a bit of a Wizard of Oz puritan, having played the Munchkin mayor in a girls’ grammar school stage version back in the 1970s, and then, the following decade, the Wicked Witch of the West herself in a quality non-pro production.

So I am rather attached to the ‘original’. Except, what is The Original? I’m also rather fond of the wonderful graphic novel versions of Frank L Baum’s Oz books by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, which straight away reveals that I am prepared for adaptation and development of source material.

And besides, the iconic 1939 film with Judy Garland was ‘based’ on Baum’s book – it wasn’t a faithful version of it.

But something about the idea of Wicked (what little I had bothered to find out about it) had prevented me ever feeling a desire to see it on stage. Possibly because, by and large, I’m not a fan of many modern shows. Gimme Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, Bart and, of course, Sondheim.

However, as the film release neared and the hype built, I realised that Cynthia Erivo was playing Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West) – and I seriously rate she as an actor and singer.

The late OH and I caught her first two films at the cinema. They were released in reverse order, so we saw Bad Times at the El Royale (her second film) in early autumn 2018 and were blown away. Hence our going to see what was actually her first film, Widows, a short while later – which we also massively too (it’s got the magnificent Viola Davis too).

Last year, I finally caught up with Harriet, where she starred as anti-slavery icon Harriet Tubman. Whatever faults the film has, her performance is not one of them.

And in 2022, she gave a solo Proms concert – which you can watch here. 

I then discovered that the show had come from the pen of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. Another connection. In my time as a theatre critic, I reviewed two of Schwartz’s shows – The Baker’s Wife (penned in 1976, but I saw it in 1989 in the West End) and Children of Eden (1991). Both had very short runs.

 

In the case of the former, I still have the double album soundtrack. It wasn’t helped by director Trevor Nunn casting his wife as the female lead, but it was helped by Alun Armstrong being the male lead. I continue to regard it with real affection.

 

In the case of the latter … one of the worst musicals I’ve ever had the misfortune to see (with the possible exception of a Robin Hood show, theh exact title of which I can’t remember, and which seems to have been erased even from Google entirely).

 

My intrigue levels rose. Perhaps this might be worth seeing?

 

On the basis of the length – well over two-and-a-half hours – and because screenings were being packed, including by fans who apparently wanted to sing along, I decided to wait for it to stream. Well, it’s available to buy or rent on Sky now.

 

Briefly, it’s the first half of the stage show, which gives a back-story to Elphaba. Was she always wicked? How did she become wicked? We get act two in November.

 

I really enjoyed it. It’s lush to look at, with a steampunk aesthetic in places. The music holds up far better than I expected. Erivo is fabulous – and I was really pleasantly impressed with Ariana Grande as Galinda (later, Glinda, The Good Witch), who I essentially was only really aware of because of the Manchester terrorist bombing – that is some vocal range she has!

 

Then, of course, you have Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, with Peter Dinklage topping the voice talent credits.

 

The stage musical premiered in 2003. It is astonishingly current in its themes as the world faces a new Trump presidency and we see the increasing rise of the far-right in so many parts of the world. It’s great entertainment – but it also has a really serious message about othering and more, and why we end up with authoritarian regimes,

 

But then I’ve spent years saying that musical theatre can often do what mainstream, populist theatre won’t do in such a sense. Make the attacks on democracy simple and clear to understand. This does it.

 

And all hail Elphaba!

A label-defying film that offers up abundant treats

If films deserved plaudits for defying labelling, then Bad Times at the El Royale, would be winning them by the bucketload. But as if to illustrate the degree to which some people really need a label, it has received a decidedly mixed reception from reviewers and viewers.

It’s 1969 and the setting is the fading hotel of the title, which bridges the state line between California and Nevada. Here, half a dozen strangers converge, all bearing secrets.

First come guests Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), struggling soul singer Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), vacuum cleaner salesman Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm) and hippie Emily Summerspring (Dakota Johnson), to be met by Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), the hotel’s sole employee.

In the background of the eerily quiet reception area and lounge, news footage shows police investigating a Malibu murder spree.

As each guest locks themselves into their room for the night, what drama could possibly play out?

By the time the sixth protagonist, Chris Hemsworth’s cult leader, arrives in the final third of the film, there have been plenty of twists and turns – and there are plenty more to come.

One of the prime complaints about Drew Goddard’s film is the length – it rolls in at 141 minutes. But length is only a problem if you’re sat in the cinema feeling uninvolved and wondering how much longer it’s going to drag on.

This, on the other hand, is incredibly inventive and engrossing: scenes unfold to explain the backstories of the main characters – and then unfold again, told from another character’s perspective. The characters themselves are far from simplistic and it's pretty pointless trying to guess their stories.

There is violence, but it’s used sparingly although, when it happens, it is genuinely shocking, even if Goddard doesn’t indulge in masses of gore. He doesn’t need to. Frankly, it’s difficult to think of a film that ratchets the tension up to the level that this does.

And thinking about that, 24 hours later, I realise that the last time I sat in a cinema and saw such a gore-free yet violent film, that built tension in other ways, was The Silence of the Lambs. And that was 1991.

Here, among the many things to admire, there is a tracking shot in the first part of the film – no spoliers here, but if you see the movie itself, you’ll know the scene when it comes up – that is simply stunning.

There have been comments that the film as a whole is ‘sub-Tarantino’, but since it never pretends to be anything like a Tarantino film, this is simply illustrative of how desperate needily some people need to find and attach labels.

Part of that is about being able to understand what you’re seeing/have seen by categorising it.

The Other Half and I knew little about the film, having seen the trailer on TV (and then in the cinema) and concluding that it looked interesting, amusing and possibly a bit of a caper movie.

‘Psychological thriller’ probably describes it as a well as any label, yet looking back on it, you can’t help feeling that it’s something else. Not ‘something else besides’, but something else entirely. There are elements of Noir; it’s got a brilliant retro look, feel and sound; there are one or two funny moments, but … it doesn’t fit any obvious mould.

The performances are universally excellent. Yet even then, British actor Erivo, in her first film to be released (the first to be filmed, Widows, opens next month), stands out. To say she can act and she can sing is an understatement. And it’s really not stretching anything to think that she should be in the reckoning early next year come the Oscar nominations.

L-R: Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman and Cynthia Erivo

Bridges is brilliant too – and so is Pullman, in only his second released film role. The latter’s performance is a revelation. For most of the film, we see him as pathetic. Only when we catch his backstory, late on, do we understand why he is what he is, and that he not pathetic.

This is a film where the characters are crafted so that we really care about them.

It's a film ‘about’ all sorts of things: there is social commentary, though very subtly. It’s about redemption – though not in a conventional way. It’s about hagiographies and reputations and political legacies – it’s about how the state protects (or otherwise) those things. And all of it is razor-sharp relevant.

To add – Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography is just another of the joys that this film has.

Bursting with ideas and subtle comments about contemporary America (and the rest of the world), Bad Times at the El Royale is a genre-buster. And if you’re going bust genres, then this is the way to do it.