EUyeshima

In 1995, Gregory Maguire wrote "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West", a captivating and creatively fantastical backstory to "The Wizard of Oz". It was just a matter of time and legal rights before it was adapted by Winnie Holzman into a 2003 musical, and the show continues to play on Broadway to packed houses 21 years later. Directed by Jon M. Chu and co-written by Holzman and Dana Fox, the 2024 film version has been much anticipated by devotees of the show, especially those addicted to the memorable songs by Stephen Schwartz. I saw it in its 2003 San Francisco pre-Broadway tryout, liked it, and promptly left it in the outer recesses of my brain. With little expectation of the movie, I was surprisingly enthralled by this production, even though part of me couldn't help but be disappointed that only the first act was covered over a generous 160-minute running time. However, my initial disappointment was quickly dissipated by fleet pacing, richly meticulous production details, energetic choreography, and a trio of mega-wattage performances from Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, and Jonathan Bailey. Briefly, "Wicked" is a story of marginalization and disenfranchisement rooted in racism. Misunderstood, green-skinned Elphaba and uber-popular Galinda (later Glinda) are university schoolmates in Oz who circuitously become best friends against a lot of adversity much of it self-imposed. When they finally make it to the Emerald City, they reach a critical point when Elphaba's special gifts are fully unleashed. Grande is a comic delight as the supremely self-absorbed Galinda, and Bailey exudes unforced charisma as the swoonworthy Fiyero. However, it's Erivo who flies highest, literally and figuratively, as Elphaba, initially a model of self-containment who liberates herself through defiance, gravitational and otherwise. Michelle Yeoh plays Madame Morrible with expected authority, and Jeff Goldblum uses his trademark laconic style to inhabit the Wizard. One can assume their characters as well as Bailey's will be fleshed out in Part 2, "Wicked: For Good".

As he has shown in unique films like "Tangerine" and "The Florida Project", Sean Baker knows how to present marginalized people and places in an unpatronizing manner. With a star-making performance from Mikey Madison, he does this again as the director and writer of this 2024 film, an intriguing albeit somewhat erratic dramedy that focuses on Madison's portrayal of Ani (short for Anora), a young, cynical sex worker working in an expansive strip club in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach. There's a large Russian community there, and her familiarity with the language connects her to Ivan (Vanya), the obscenely wealthy 21-year-old son of a Russian oligarch. The first part of the story focuses on the "Pretty Woman"-like romance that develops between them in the midst of her workaday existence, and this section shows off Baker's affinity for showcasing emotional character development. When the plot takes a seriocomic turn that involves the oligarch's henchmen, including a rather errant and obsessed priest, the film starts to feel repetitive until the inevitable family confrontation occurs and harsh realities come to the fore. The film felt padded at 139 minutes, especially since Ani is presented fully as a character while Ivan is relegated more to stereotype. While Mark Eydelsteyn provides the right child-like energy to Ivan, it is Madison who plumbs the depths and exposes true fearlessness as Ani. Karren Kuligian, Vache Tovmasyan, and especially Yura Borisov make the henchmen genuinely original characters. The film could've been tightened up (not Baker's forte), but Madison is the real thing.

I have to say director Pablo Larrain's 2024 entry into his iconic 20th-century women trilogy was a disappointment. It starts with the casting as Angelina Jolie may be too iconic herself to portray supreme diva Maria Callas, the least remembered of the trio, the other two being "Jackie" (2016) and Diana in "Spencer" (2021). Jolie conveys the necessary self-possession to carry off the regal image of the world's greatest opera singer, but physically she looks too skeletal to emulate convincingly the more robust figure Callas struck. Written by Steven Knight, the lugubrious, longish film covers the last week of Callas's life in 1977 Paris, a fictionalized account with inevitable flashbacks that cumulatively plays out like a ghost story. All the production elements like the burnished cinematography and set details are impressively handled, but Larrain's creative choices are more arguable, for example, the hallucinogenic images of choruses of people singing back to her in public spaces. There is the ambiguous role of an interviewer (opaquely played by Kodi Smit-McPhee) with the same name as her prescription medication who forces her to confront her legacy. Some of the flashbacks signal more intriguing elements to her story like her rather inchoate relationship with Aristotle Onassis, her traumatizing encounters with Nazis when she was a child, and an intriguing conversation with JFK (played by Caspar Phillipson cast in the same, somewhat inconsequential role in "Jackie"). Her cloistered existence is leavened only by two devoted servants played poignantly by Pierfrancesco Favina and Alba Rohrwacher. Still Jolie's star power has a showcase befitting of her singular talent to convey hubris and vulnerability at almost the same time.