Went to watch wicked yesterday. I have nothing much to add other than my original criticism that Ariana is playing pretend as Glinda, but in a way, the flavor of Ariana that she puts on the table was interesting to me, real diva vibes as she always has had, except with less "yuh" and more hair (read, wig) twirling. I didn't hate it.
I was impressed hearing her sing. Her singing was better than I expected, I do like Ariana Grande's music but when it comes to her songs, her lyrics have always been unintelligible. They must have had vocal coaches because that wasn't the case in this movie, and for a moment I thought "yeah, she could do theater if she wanted to". I'm not an expert in that field though, but I can tell this makes her way happier than singing on big stages and touring. I hope this new love for acting lasts, because I'm afraid that once she isn't the center of attention anymore something will happen and maybe she will get disenchanted with it. Oh well.
She needs more experience when it comes to acting though. The heights for me were "No one mourns the wicked", "What is this feeling?" and "Popular". She did some maneuvers I never expected to see her do, and it was fun and immersive. I forgot she was Ariana for a while, a truly pleasant surprise. But when it came to the action scenes, the monkeys chasing Elphaba inside the emerald city, it was clear that she cannot act as anything but herself. It threw me off. It was as fake as her SNL skits and it felt like I was watching one of them if I'm honest. She's better playing pretend as a princess, a damsel in distress, than an actually distressed person.
In any case, she cannot mask her eyes well. This is what distinguishes her from Cynthia Erivo. Cynthia is completely professional and you can see it when she acts. When dancing with Fiyero, Ariana tried her best to be interested in him and yes she conveyed that well enough. But then you add Buck to the scene, and Ariana's eyes are completely enamored with him even though her actions are saying the opposite. "Oh god, she REALLY likes spongebob" I thought to myself. And yes, Ethan Slater is absolutely more hideous in the big screen.
Another instance of this was "Defying Gravity". Maybe I'm proyecting way too much, but seeing Ariana cry as she sung it with Elphaba just made me think of previous interviews about the casting, and I didn't see Glinda crying. I saw Ariana crying because her dream as a little girl came true
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