Many of the changes that the first Wicked film made were for the better: cute Dr. Dillamond, an added backstory around Elphaba’s childhood, and Glinda’s fabulous “Popular” outro. But in Wicked: For Good, a dastardly alteration is underfoot. The PG film had to do something with its love song, and now there is confirmation that they massacred my boy: “As Long As You’re Mine” is no longer horny. “From the very beginning, she goes, ‘Kiss me fiercely,’” director Jon M. Chu told Deadline during the the BFI London Film Festival. “In this movie, they’re actually apart. There’s hesitation.” But this song is not about hesitation; it’s about going for it.
In the Act Two duet, Elphaba and Fiyero profess their love for each other and, as all musical-theater kids since 2003 know, once the song ends, they’re doing more than that. In the Broadway staging, they kiss right from the beginning, then never stop touching as they sing, grazing each other’s faces and breathing each other’s air before ending with another kiss. Instead, in the film, out on November 21, Chu explained that Fiyero will spend the song looking at the Ozian propaganda saying Elphaba is evil. “He looks at her and it’s like, ‘Wow, you survived all of this and you’re still kind and you are beautiful,’” Chu continued. “And he says, ‘You’re beautiful.’ And I think that intimacy, getting them closer in the song, actually makes it feel more sensual. Even though they’re not actually physically doing anything.”
Click here to preview your posts with PRO themes ››
While Chu is describing a nice time, “As Long As You’re Mine” is about physical intimacy. The melody is crooning and desperate, and their harmonies intertwine in a way that is supposed to mirror their bodies. “They say there’s no future / for us as a pair / but just for this moment / I don’t care,” the two sing. That’s not about them learning new things about each other — that’s about them experiencing one moment together as intensely as possible. “For the first time, I feel … wicked,” Elphaba says at the end of the original. That line isn’t just about emotional intimacy but rather Elphaba’s first time taking pleasure in selfishness. Literally. Played apart, Wicked: For Good deprives audiences — and Jonathan Bailey — of a cinematic sexual awakening. Let Wicked be wicked.
