In Oz, while the famous yellow brick road to Emerald City is coming along nicely, there’s just one big worry: The Wicked Witch of the West. But surprise! She’s not wicked at all. Turns out, Elphaba—yeah, that’s her real name—is trying to expose the Wizard’s lies. Problem is, Madame Mortimer’s spreading fake news about her and now everyone thinks she’s bad news. Meanwhile, Glinda, who everyone adores as the good witch from up North, doesn’t actually have any magical powers—she’s faking it.

“Wicked” dives into how these two unlikely friends—about as different as night and day—end up teaming up to change things for real in Oz.

The movie bursts onto the screen with two stories happening side by side. On one hand, it’s all about politics and showing that everything isn’t as shiny and wonderful as it seems in Oz. Then on the flip side, there’s a love story brewing between Elphaba and Prince Fiyero.

Director Jon M. Chu really digs into how folks in Oz went full-on witch hunt mode (literally!). He shows Madame Mortimer cranking out lies through newspapers and magazines that shape what everyone believes.
In the land of Oz, things aren’t always as shiny and perfect as they seem. Even when the wizard gets exposed as a bit of a fraud, folks in Oz still believe in him. It’s like they’d rather stick with their beliefs than face cold, hard facts. It reflects that thing we all know too well—sometimes people value their opinions over actual truth.

Elphaba, the so-called Wicked Witch, lays it out for Glinda: people need someone to blame to feel better about themselves (“They need someone to be wicked so that you can be good”). The story digs into why everyone’s got the roles they’ve been dealt—like how the Lion became cowardly or how events led Dorothy from Kansas all thanks to that crazy cyclone.

The second part of “Wicked” dives deeper into these tales and mixes things up quite a bit. Sometimes it takes itself a tad too seriously, but those catchy song-and-dance numbers keep things lively—even if not every single one hits the mark perfectly.

And then there’s that line delivered with not an ounce of irony: “For the first time I feel wicked.” They try hard with romantic bits too, and by wrapping up with them again at the end, it sort of turns this whole saga into a love story—a twist you won’t find in Baum’s original tale or the classic MGM movie.
So, picture this: The story kicks off with everyone cheering because the Wicked Witch of the West is dead. But hang on, things take a twist. Flash forward almost five hours later, we circle back to where it all began. Yet now it’s like we’re looking at everything with brand-new eyes. Nothing’s quite what it seemed at first—it’s a whole new perspective on that big celebration we started with!