As moviegoers return to theaters to see “Depraved: For Good,” the sequel to the 2024 Broadway adaptation about an unlikely friendship between two witches, they might be shocked by the second installment’s darker tone.
Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), an unfairly villainized determine within the legendary land of Oz, spends a lot of the brand new movie making an attempt to avoid wasting her kingdom from a descent into authoritarianism.
In a brand new tune by composer Stephen Schwartz referred to as “There’s No Place Like Dwelling,” Erivo sings of her beloved homeland, “Why do I really like this place that’s by no means beloved me?”
Schwartz wrote the tune in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, when he and playwright Winnie Holzman had been working to adapt their long-running 2003 stage musical right into a two-film construction.
The tune, and the musical’s storyline, replicate the sophisticated emotions Schwartz believes he and plenty of different People have about their nation in 2025.
“Regardless of the place you lie on a political or ideological spectrum, it should be apparent that the America we reside in at this time is sort of a unique nation than 10 years in the past,” Schwartz mentioned in a Zoom interview with NBC Information after the movie’s file breaking opening weekend. “And so if you happen to really feel that one thing is being misplaced, the query then turns into, effectively, what do you do about that?”
Common Photos’ “Depraved: For Good” is directed by Jon M. Chu and stars Erivo because the Depraved Witch of the West and Ariana Grande because the Good Witch, Glinda. (NBC Information and Common Photos share Comcast as a father or mother firm.)
Whereas the primary film centered on the magic of the witches’ faculty days, the brand new movie takes extra of a foreboding tone. Oz’s speaking animals have been locked in cages and the Munchkins are prevented from touring freely, photos that some viewers have taken as an allegory concerning the risks of fascism or a critique of present U.S. immigration insurance policies.
“No Place Like Dwelling,” Schwartz mentioned, is actually a love tune Erivo sings to a declining place.
“Any of us who reside in a spot that we don’t essentially really feel nice about, or that hasn’t essentially been nice to us, we grapple with that query: Why can we care a lot?”
Schwartz’s new tune for Grande, however, is a few political awakening. “The Woman within the Bubble” marks Glinda’s “turning level,” Schwartz mentioned, a second when she realizes that she is enabling the cruelty and dishonesty of Oz’s leaders. “As privileged as she is, she will’t reside with herself anymore,” Schwartz mentioned.
Not like the songs within the first “Depraved” movie, which weren’t eligible for Academy Awards as a result of they’d been within the stage musical, each “There’s No Place Like Dwelling” and “The Woman within the Bubble” are potential finest authentic tune Oscar nominees.
The “Depraved” story has all the time been influenced by present occasions and topic to political analyses. Some interpreted L. Frank Baum’s authentic, 1900 kids’s guide “The Great Wizard of Oz” as a critique of the American populism motion of the Eighteen Nineties. The 1939 MGM movie adaptation of Baum’s guide arrived with its portrayal of a misleading chief simply as American audiences had been awakening to the risks of Adolf Hitler.
Schwartz and Holzman tailored their 2003 stage play from Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel, “Depraved,” which Maguire has mentioned was partly impressed by the primary Gulf Warfare. Within the 2024 documentary “Depraved: The Actual Story,” Maguire mentioned he was focused on exploring the thought of “what’s evil and what are my obligations?” In crafting the stage musical, Schwartz and Holzman had been considering the occasions of September 11 and the U.S.’s response to them.
“Depraved: For Good” is one of some large price range, tentpole-style movies from Hollywood this 12 months that embrace both a literal or an allegorical layer of politics together with the spectacle.
Some conservative commentators accused Warner Bros’s “One Battle After One other,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an over-the-hill left-wing radical, of endorsing political violence when it opened in September. Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” is a vampire film about racial injustice; “Zootopia 2,” which Disney opened Wednesday, offers with political polarization; and “Avatar: Fireplace and Ash,” which Disney will launch Dec. 19, tackles environmental points.
Up to now, a lot of the stars and makers of those movies have let the tales communicate for themselves.
Or, within the case of “Depraved,” the songs.
Whereas selling the movie, “Depraved’s” stars alluded to the film’s broader themes, however largely caught to speaking factors that may entice audiences throughout the political spectrum.
In a TV particular that aired Nov. 6 on NBC, Erivo started to introduce a tune by saying, “In occasions like these, that really feel so divided, as if we’re studying from completely different pages and completely different books…”
Grande completed the thought, saying, “We wish you all to know you’re by no means alone and also you’re protected with us.”
Each of the brand new songs in “Depraved: For Good” should do with mustering the braveness to battle injustice, Schwartz mentioned.
“Do you try to work out a way of resisting or appearing to recuperate what’s been misplaced and enhance what appears to be going within the unsuitable route?” he requested. “How a lot of a danger are you prepared to take?”
