Yes, Wicked: Part I is only the first act of the Broadway musical, and yes, clocking in at two hours and 40 minutes, it’s basically the length of the full stage show. But director Jon M. Chu mostly uses that extra time to flesh out the emotional beats of the plot and dig into the characters more meaningfully. No scene exemplifies that more than the extended Ozdust Ballroom duet between bubbly socialite Galinda/Glinda (Ariana Grande) and outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo).

The duet exists in the stage show, as the two women dance in the midst of the show’s longest song, “Dancing Through Life.” In the movie, the song is even longer, but the expanded version is very much worth the run time.

In the stage show, after Elphaba shows up at the Ozdust Ballroom party in the ugly pointy black hat Galinda tricked her into wearing, she decides to dance alone in an act of defiance. Everyone at........

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