Image credit: Universal Pictures/AP
Spectacular! Visually stunning! Way too long! Good, but not great! Exhausting! This is just some of what’s been said about Wicked. Have you seen it? If so, what did you think of it? If you loved it, what did you love about it? If not, why not? Or maybe you liked some of it but not all of it. See what Wendy Ide, the chief film critic of the Observer, says in a review published in The Guardian on November 24, 2024.
Read it here.
EXPLORE, REFLECT, SPEAK UP.
1. We can see from the title that Wendy Ide likes Wicked, yet she starts out on a negative note, with a paragraph full of reasons for approaching this “shiny, high-energy, relentlessly marketed” film with “low to moderate expectations.” Why do you think she begins her review this way? How did it affect the way that you read the rest of her review?
2. Ide changes her tune in the second paragraph, proclaiming that “Wicked matches its polished razzle-dazzle with real heart.” How exactly does she support that claim?
3. Ide builds her review on a series of contrasts—calling Wicked, for example, “a movie that promises a froth of pink and green escapism but delivers considerably more in the way of depth and darkness.” Go back through the review, identifying as many such contrasts as you can. Then think about why she might have chosen this rhetorical strategy to make a particular argument. In a sentence or two, what exactly is that argument?
4. LET’S TALK. Ide never tells us explicitly what criteria she used to evaluate this film. Working with a classmate, read over the review to see if you can tell what the criteria are. Make a list, and then think about other criteria she might have considered—or that you would have considered if you were reviewing this film.
5. AND NOW WRITE. What do you think? If you’ve seen Wicked, do you agree with what Ide says? If you have not yet seen it, does her review make you want to see it? Write a short response to her review—summarizing her argument and then agreeing, disagreeing, or both.
LetsTalkLibrary 