Have I Been Changed For Good?: My ‘Wicked: For Good’ Review

‘They need someone to be wicked - so that you can be good.’

- Wicked: For Good, dir. Jon M. Chu, 2025

The part two that myself and the entire world has been waiting a year for, and I finally got to sit down in an overpriced cinema to watch it. It’s taken a week to get my thoughts in order, but I’m still not making any promises. This review/essay/ramble might be as much of a mess as I was during the last half an hour of this film, but we’ll see how I get on.

It goes without saying, but Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are once in a lifetime stars. I don’t think there’s much doubt about that so I wanted to put it out there first and foremost. They’ll both have that EGOT before the end of their careers, mark my words. If I turn eighty and they don’t - I’ll eat my hat. A witch’s hat, of course.

I would say that the first instalment of ‘Wicked’ was Elphaba’s movie at its heart, and ‘For Good’ was Glinda’s. Although it deeply saddens me that Ariana is taking a step back from music after her upcoming tour (which particularly stings because I did not survive the war for tickets), I am so excited about where she is going to take her acting career next. She shone in this film, and I can’t wait to see her in the upcoming ‘Meet the Parents’ sequel, alongside Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. Ariana Grande starring in a comedy is everything I’ve wanted post-Wicked, so I guess I’d better watch the first two ‘Fockers’ films to prepare.

At the risk of sounding parasocial, seeing Ariana Grande upset in this film (because God was Glinda going through it) made me upset. Never mind her vocal range, her emotional range in this second part was beautiful. Female friendships will always be a weakness for me because it’s something I latch so heavily onto and rely on in my own life. To see two women on screen who just love each other so purely, regardless of social barriers, or men, or any bitterness they may be trying to hold in tight grips, is such a beautiful thing for little girls to be looking up to. They choose to let go of it all. And something about seeing women who love so fiercely on a big screen feels inspiring - validating in a way. Their softness is a power. The way that women love is a power.

I’ve also been so fascinated by the way in which film and tv, particularly fantasy or fiction of other worlds, has recently been reflecting and criticising the current political climate we’re wading through - as it has been doing for years. How do we, when it feels like certain avenues of communication, expression and rebellion make us feel like we are screaming into a void, and have lost all power, how do we choose to connect ourselves to others, to our communities, instead?

It’s almost always through art. And so often by creating other worlds that only slightly, but just enough to matter, mirror our own. If we can see the problems we face in our own societies at a step removed, and see creatures of fiction, people we may find it easier to empathise with, placed into another’s shoes and to feel with them, we might just be closer to approaching our own world with slightly more tenderness and care.

After all, I have always believed that art creates empathy.

Fantasy is a mirror that we can turn onto ourselves and our own communities. There are many poignant political resonances particularly in this second instalment of ‘Wicked’. I won’t touch on any major spoilers, however there is a moment in this film when, after animals have been banned from travelling freely throughout Oz, an elected government official decrees that munchkins, whose rights have never been questioned up until this point, are also no longer allowed to travel freely unless given permission by a governor. This decision is made from a place of insecurity, fear and bias, yet it effects an entire group of people.

I thought this was such a good way of illustrating a kind of trickle-down effect we see with oppressive control coordinated by those in power who are trying to isolate a few in order to appease the many. For me, it sparked a connection to how the basic human rights of trans people are directly connected to those of women, and sexism more broadly. Currently, the trans community are an easy target for governments and those in power to villainise - but what about when trans rights are taken away, and that level of control is no longer satisfactory? We see examples of it happening already in the sports world, where women are barred from competing in female categories because they are deemed to have too high levels of testosterone. Who gets to decide who is a woman and who isn’t? If a woman who was assigned female at birth cannot compete in women’s categories, then who can? Control will continue to clamp down unless there are people fighting against it, openheartedly and for all, rather than selfishly for a few. Exclusionary politics help no one.

I fear I may have moved away slightly from a film review (though I do think you can’t discuss ‘Wicked’ as a whole without touching on a little bit of political discussion, and I did mention potential rambling), so let’s talk about the music. Of course ‘For Good’ is the showstopper in this film - it had me in tears, naturally - but ‘As Long As You’re Mine’ was the other recognisable standout. I think a lot of people are going to be taken by surprise by Jonathan Bailey here, as he manages to go toe to toe with Cynthia Erivo. Of course this is completely different tonally to ‘Dancing Through Life’, which allows for more of his charm to take over and perhaps overshadow the vocal performance - in ‘For Good’, his musical talent is hard to ignore.

If I were to look at this film with a slightly more critical eye (yes, I did give it five stars on Letterboxd anyway for my pure enjoyment of it), I would say that due to the nature of the this film being purely the story of the second half of a musical, which in the stage production would have had a runtime of about an hour, that has been drawn out into over two hours, the pacing is occasionally all over the place. I’m not sure it’s quite as cohesive as the first act. Some songs were oddly timed and I could feel the narrative stretching but not quite encompassing what it could have been. I would have loved more relationship building between some of our characters - a lot of which were there, but I feel like huge plot points were skimmed over and not given the right moments to settle. I’ve seen a lot of people defend this by saying this film feels this way because it is a second half rather than a sequel, but ultimately this is a movie, and not a second act of a stage production, therefore it should have been adjusted (slightly!) to fit its new purpose.

I do think the two added songs, ‘No Place Like Home’ and ‘The Girl in the Bubble’, helped this film feel more rounded out. It definitely would’ve felt empty as a musical movie without them. We needed an introspective Glinda moment in the second half, and ‘The Girl in the Bubble’ delivered: it’s a moment of realisation that allows us fully into Glinda’s world and her conflicting moral code. There are beautiful, challenging moments like this that allow the audience to see deeper into the minds of these women, to understand what they desire for themselves, what they are warring with, which then makes the film’s resolution hit so much harder. It has always been Glinda and Elphaba’s relationship that has been the beating heart of ‘Wicked’ after all, I just wish we had more time with them to see their friendship grow and change.

Despite wanting more time, I do hope that off the back of the immense success of these films, Universal don’t try and drain every ounce of goodness from this story and this world by making a dozen spin offs or sequels or prequels or whatever other crap they think up to make money. It doesn’t need it, and I think myself and most of the other movie-viewing public are sick of obvious cash grabs. The story is complete - let it lie, let it settle. Let everyone who loves it still love it in ten years time without having to look back on it after it has been tainted because the franchise has been bled dry. I’m begging you Jon M. Chu, don’t agree to make more of these.

So, would I say I have been changed for good? I think it’s obvious that everyone involved in the making of these films has - their passion has been infectious and I think is part of the reason the films performed so well. When people truly love what they are making it’s hard for that passion not to catch on. As far as for me, I think only time will tell if this story will stick with me, but I can count on the fact that I will return to it many a time, just to hear Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s versions of ‘Defying Gravity’ and ‘For Good’. The soundtrack has already been on repeat in the car on the way to work.