‘Wicked: For Good’ Review: I Have Been Changed…For Good
I have loved Wicked for most of my life. I know where the applause usually lands. I know which lyric inevitably gets a breathy laugh and which one draws a collective hush. I’ve watched Elphaba defy gravity from the orchestra, the mezzanine, the lottery seats, and once from behind a pole that still couldn’t block the emotional punch. So walking into Wicked: For Good, the second half of the long-awaited film adaptation, I wasn’t looking for reinvention. I was looking for respect. What I got was something rarer: reverence paired with confidence.
[Warning: spoilers from the Wicked: For Good are below!]
Beginning at the end of Wicked: For Good
We pick up where the first film leaves off—after the friendship fracture that defines Wicked’s emotional spine. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is now fully branded as the Wicked Witch, Glinda (Ariana Grande) is the public darling playing politics with a smile, and Oz has chosen comfort over truth. The plot, as stage fans know, accelerates quickly from here: alliances harden, propaganda tightens its grip, and the personal costs of “doing the right thing” become devastatingly clear. What the film does differently, and wisely, is slow the emotional math. Instead of racing from beat to beat to make curtain, it allows silence, regret, and interior conflict to take up space.
That is the most meaningful difference between stage and screen: time. Onstage, Wicked Act II has always felt intentionally breathless, almost panicked, as if the story itself knows it’s running out of room. The film refuses that constraint. Scenes that once functioned as connective tissue—Elphaba on the run, Glinda navigating public life, Fiyero’s (Jonathan Bailey) reckoning—are expanded just enough to feel human rather than symbolic. The result is a story that lands with greater emotional clarity without losing momentum.
The artistic decisions in this Universal film
Visually, the film makes a bold choice not to chase spectacle for spectacle’s sake. Yes, Oz is lush and cinematic, but Wicked: For Good is more grounded than its predecessor. The color palette subtly shifts; the gleam of Emerald City gives way to earthier, colder tones as the moral lines blur. This mirrors the stage production’s lighting design but deepens it with texture and scale that only film can offer. It’s Oz as a real place with consequences, not just a fantasy playground.
Musically, the film largely honors Stephen Schwartz’s original score, and thank goodness. These songs are cultural touchstones for a reason. “No Good Deed” in particular benefits from the medium shift. Onstage, it’s already a volcanic release; onscreen, it becomes intimate and feral. The camera stays close, allowing us to see the moment Elphaba stops asking for permission—from the Wizard, from Glinda, from the audience. It’s not bigger than the stage version; it’s sharper. More dangerous. More earned.
Where the film truly distinguishes itself from the stage is in its treatment of Glinda. Onstage, Glinda often risks becoming a caricature in Act II—a necessary one, but still broad. The film gives her complexity without sanding off her flaws. We see the cost of her choices more explicitly: the isolation, the self-justification, the creeping awareness that popularity can be a cage. This makes “For Good” (the song) land not as a farewell engineered for tears, but as a reckoning between two women who loved each other and chose differently. I cried—not because I expected to, but because it felt honest.
Fans will inevitably debate the ending, and I’ll tread carefully here. The film makes subtle adjustments—not to the outcome, but to the framing. The stage version ends with a sense of bittersweet closure that relies heavily on theatrical shorthand. The film allows the aftermath to breathe. It trusts the audience to sit with ambiguity rather than rush toward catharsis. As a lifelong fan, I appreciated that restraint. It suggests a creative team that understands why this story has endured, not just how to reproduce it.
Musical lovers take note
That said, purists should know: the film does make choices. Some lines are reassigned. Some transitions are smoothed. A few moments that thrive on live-theatre electricity lose a touch of their punch without an audience reacting in real time. But what is lost in immediacy is gained in intimacy. Film can’t replicate the communal gasp of a Broadway house—but it can offer a close-up that feels like a confession.
Ultimately, Wicked: For Good succeeds because it doesn’t try to replace the stage production. It stands beside it. This is not “better Wicked.” It is different Wicked—a version that understands that loving something deeply sometimes means letting it evolve. As someone who has spent years defending this show against dismissive takes, I found the film validating. It treats Wicked not as a guilty pleasure, but as a modern myth about power, friendship, and the stories we tell to feel clean.
When the final notes faded, I didn’t feel like I’d watched an adaptation trying to justify its existence. I felt like I’d been invited to revisit an old friend—older now, maybe sadder, but no less meaningful. And that, for a lifelong Wicked lover, is the highest compliment I can give.
Wicked: For Good is available now on a variety of streaming services to rent or buy. Have you watched this film yet? How do you feel it holds up to the stage production or even Wicked Part 1? Let us know your thoughts @bsb.insider on all social media platforms!
Wicked Part One Defies Gravity and Every Expectation
