Mary and I saw Wicked: For Good last night at the local theater. It was OK; we both thought it dragged a bit in parts, and the songs weren’t as good as the ones in part 1. We generally enjoyed it. But there was a weird moment. We were seated in the front row, and throughout the last half, there was an annoying sniffling sound rising from behind us. At the end when the lights came up and we stood up to leave, I discovered that the theater was packed, I was the only man in attendance, and most of the women were in tears or dabbing at their eyes.

I guess that wasn’t too surprising: it was a movie about two women building a close friendship in opposition to a very bad man, a con man and liar, a real cad, who was wrecking the country of Oz and banishing a whole class of people, who happened to be talking animals. He also didn’t like Munchkins. So yeah, it’s a movie for women.

One thing I didn’t like was, spoiler alert: they tacked on a happy ending for the Wicked Witch. It’s like they read Gregory Maguire’s book, that they claimed the musical was based on, and said, “This is way too dark and complicated and confusing,” so they threw it all out and kept the part about the relationship between two protagonists. That’s OK; I think Maguire’s book was a mess and wouldn’t have made a good movie anyway, and particularly wasn’t suited for a musical.

It was a fun movie, but if you go, be prepared to be enveloped in a cloud of estrogen vapors by the end.