Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s stage musical filling in the backstory of the witches in the Wizard of Oz inspires devotion bordering on derangement in its fans. Jon M. Chu’s lavish cinematic adaptation won’t disappoint them.
It’s a visually ravishing, emotionally freighted vehicle for the prodigious vocal and considerable acting talents of Cynthia Erivo as the shunned, green-skinned Elphaba and Ariana Grande as the vacuously beautiful Galinda/Glinda (for those who haven’t seen it she changes her name halfway through).
