It’s Time to Second-Guess Elphaba’s Broom

As a seasoned cinephile with over three decades of movie-watching under my belt, I must confess that “Wicked: Part One” left me both enchanted and bewildered. The cinematic journey was captivating, with Cynthia Erivo’s powerful performance as Elphaba elevating the film to new heights. However, the inconsistencies in the magical broom dynamics left me scratching my head more often than a monkey with dandruff.

In the climactic scenes of “Wicked: Part One“, Cynthia Erivo’s character Elphaba reaches a peak moment, both musically and thematically, as she defiantly sings “Defying Gravity” while floating on her levitating broomstick. This spectacle is breathtaking, yet leaves viewers slightly bewildered due to the inconsistent physics of her flying broom. We don’t ask for absolute realism in a story about magic, but a touch of logic would be appreciated to better grasp the magical workings of Oz as depicted in Jon M. Chu’s direction.

In the movie, Elphaba inadvertently applies a levitation charm from the Grimmerie on monkeys, causing them to sprout wings. Later, during “Defying Gravity,” she tries to give herself wings with the same spell but instead enchants a broom to fly. It would be more logical if the broom had wings too, but that’s impossible because the plot requires her to acquire the Wicked Witch’s broom. Elphaba then leaps out of a window and loses the broom. As she plummets through the air, the broom mysteriously flies towards her as if she commands it, though she has no control over it. The spell allows the broom to come to her when she desires, but not any other objects she previously cast the spell on.

It’s quite striking when Elphaba takes to the air on her broom; she doesn’t seem to need it for propulsion. Instead, it appears she’s the one who’s flying. This becomes clear when she extends the broom at a ninety-degree angle from her body and remains suspended in mid-air. If the broom were the only thing flying, we’d expect Elphaba to be underneath it, but that’s not the case. Instead, she’s floating effortlessly while gazing down at people below. One might wonder, how on earth is she doing this?

In every instance where Elphaba performs a spell in “Wicked: Part Two”, the outcome is unpredictable, making it hard to follow the story since we’re unsure of her spells’ repercussions. It would be helpful if “Wicked: Part One” provided a clear understanding of the fundamentals of the strongest magic in Oz, perhaps by showing her spell-casting causing common objects like brooms to fly or monkeys to sprout wings. However, for one spell to achieve all these effects simultaneously seems implausible. This inconsistency between the magical events and the film’s logic is problematic, as it weakens the overall credibility of “Wicked: Part Two”. (For those curious, “Wicked: Part One” lasts approximately two hours and forty minutes.)

2024-11-26 03:53

It’s Time to Second-Guess Elphaba’s Broom

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