At the end of the fantasy adventure Wicked (2024), the green-skinned witch Elphaba was branded a public enemy by the Wizard of Oz and his aide Madam Morrible. While Elphaba fled Oz, Elphaba’s friend Glinda stayed behind, a choice that seemingly pitted Glinda on the right side of the good-versus-evil contest. Already, events in Wicked had shown this binary to be false, the result of skilful manipulation by the Wizard and Morrible to create an enemy that could be used to control the people of Oz.

The sequel sees Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) continue on her mission to expose the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) while also rehabilitating the animals who have been banned from Oz. Glinda (Ariana Grande), who has been propped up as Oz’s mascot, tries to balance her concern over Elphaba with her love for the prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who in turn loves Elphaba.

Jon M Chu’s follow-up to Wicked leaves behind the giddy humour of its predecessor and is an altogether more grown-up affair. Although overstretched and prone to interrupting the narrative flow with too many songs, Wicked: For Good is thematically richer and more emotionally engaging than its predecessor.

Both the movies are based on the popular Broadway musical, itself inspired by Gregory Maguire’s novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Although the adaptations dilute Maguire’s radically grim retelling of L Frank Baum’s classic children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, some of Maguire’s darkness and warnings about tyranny and propaganda have been retained in the new film.

The friendship that is frayed by circumstances and tested by external forces is at the heart of the movie, resulting in lovely scenes between Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Both the leads are terrific, with Grande especially compelling in the movie’s emotionally heavy moments. Grande’s permanently-in-pink crowd-pleaser is everything that the black-robed and sceptical Elphaba isn’t, but the connective tissue between the women is unbreakable.

After piling on a tune too many (despite some superb singing by Grande and Erivo), the 137-minute movie cranks out a compelling climax, which further rewrites the arc of the source material. Wicked: For Good also connects to the characters in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but through a non-Disneyfied lens.

Rather than the forgettable music, it is the deep understanding between Elphaba and Glinda, with some help from Fiyero, that lingers in memory. Having started out as a musical, Wicked: For Good moves into the realm of resonant declarations and soft-focus visuals of a relationship that defies simplistic notions of goodness and villainy.

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