Wicked (1998)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

'Wicked' has long been on my list to watch, mostly because of the enchanting Julia Styles, but I was as much afraid that it would be just something of a B-film with no redeeming qualities. But I was quite wrong, I'm happy to admit. It opens straight away with a blend of some Hitchcockian elements (fine cinematography, fine classical music - there is some noisy music later on, as well - and a square stairwell, even!), showing us the main character Ellie, who's in the habit of running away from every almost every single day, and a few other key inhabitants of Casa del Norte, a secured suburb somewhere in America. And that Hitchcockian feel never goes away.The story is not all the time focused on the thriller side of things, but mostly feels like something close to a twisted - quite twisted - black crime comedy on suburban family life gone astray, with some horror and drama elements. The title, plot and movie poster really don't leave much room for guessing, but there's a twist at the end, and the whole ride is more than fun enough to go along for - I've even seen it twice within a few days. Julia Styles may take the cake, but not without Vanessa Zima taking a big chunk as well, and none of the other cast members disappoint.A devious little flick from the late '90s that is worth a try, I'd say. A good 7 out of 10.

Rented Wicked because I was curious about Julia Stiles' first leading role and expected this to suck. Look at the plot, which basically says, "Ellie, 14-yr old (in real life 17-yr old Stiles) tries to take her murdered mother's role. It sounded to me as though some script writer took a psychological term "Electra Complex" and warped it to a sexual context. Yet the Phallic stage ends at around six, and it is defined as envy of the male genitals, not as a sexual desire for one's father. Jung updated the study, but really psychology theory is as unfair to women in many ways including this example. Despite that, Eric Weiss decided to create his own psychiatry. Still, Stiles does well in her role and believable. However, the character Lena (Louise Myrback) outshines young Stiles in both her role as the new alpha woman and in her acting ability. I enjoyed it when Lena put the child in her place and told her that she looked so cute in dress up and then rubbed off blush because Ellie wasn't old enough to know how to do it right. Kids need to be put in their place and told they are just kids. That character was awesome and bold -- made the film worth seeing for me.

I get more and more respect for Julia Stiles, the more movies I see with her. Initially, I considered her rather boring and not even particularly pretty, but now that I've seen a wide selection of her choice of roles, I find her growing on me in a big way! She's been in Shakespeare movies and she's generally not afraid to tackle difficult, uncommercial and controversial material. Save The Last Dance was a great experience for me; I could watch it over and over. So of course I also had to get Wicked. In fact, after looking for it for a long time, I was finally able to buy it as a second-hand DVD from a friend.The movie was something quite different than I expected. I thought it was going to have supernatural elements, but it didn't. Instead it was a fairly low-key drama about how social and especially familial misery is perpetuated. How people continue down bad roads because they mimic what they see their role models (usually older family members) do.The general structure of the movie is that of a murder mystery, and a quite effective one. Ellie's mother is killed, and seemingly everyone in the family and communal vicinity are unstable enough to be suspects. Was it the baby-sitter, the father or the neighbor? Or was it Ellie herself, whose relationship with her mother was particularly bad, even hateful? There seems, from the user comments here, to be differing opinions about who the murderer was, because the end of the movie is not very specific about the first murder. Was it Ellie or her younger sister? In my opinion, it makes by far the most sense if it was Ellie. The younger sister ended up killing Ellie, of course, but there is no logic to her being the first murderer. Instead there is plenty of logic to Ellie being the first murderer, because her younger sister was just mimicking Ellie. In fact, I'm sure this is the case, because of the strangle-hold episode, where Ellie nearly strangles her sister - this would have "inspired" her sister to conclude that this was the proper sort of way to deal with a problematic situation. (Indeed, the first murder *cannot* have been committed by the younger sister, due to her reaction to her discovery of the suitcase containing the murder weapon.)So, the movie was about "monkey see, monkey do", or, as Shakespeare put it, "the evil that men do lives after them". We first have Ellie trying to replace her mother as the woman of the house, incl. all marital duties, and when she partially achieves this, her sister subsequently replaces Ellie's earlier role in the house, starting also to carry out the tasks that she saw Ellie do. Essentially, the youngest sister is trying to replace Ellie, just as Ellie tried to replace their mother, and using most of the same methods to achieve it - even murder.Yes, it is an updated version of the Electra story, and it is also a statement about the dangers of isolation. Taking place in a gated community that is meant to shut out the evils of the world, we see that those evils continue in our midst, because with the gated community we have done nothing but *pretend* that those evils were not part of us - in other words, we have glossed over some symptoms but not dealt with the causes.Even beyond this, there are many interesting non-literal elements to think about in this movie. For instance, the opening, with the blond girl that we think is Ellie driving around (intercut with scenes of Ellie packing), but is really Lena, must be meant to indicate that Ellie's father likes women with that look. So maybe he had a subconscious reverse-Oedipal complex towards his daughter, too. In general, the father was an unassertive and weak-minded man that one couldn't feel much sympathy for.Anyway, the movie is well-acted and quite absorbing on most levels. The one thing that keeps it from a higher rating is that it simply isn't believable that the 11 or 12-year-old young sister is capable of the brutal murder of her older sister - maybe she had the will to do it, but it's highly doubtful that she had the physical strength. However, because of the symbolism and nice structure to the movie, I can accept the ending - but only just.I'm looking forward to a second viewing, where I may notice more details.My rating: A very solid 7 out of 10.

If you're going to make a picture centering on a seductive nymphette with a fixation on keeping daddy all to herself, then do it with some courage and conviction. All you get here is slick innuendo for what's at the center of a routine murder mystery. If you're going to tackle this kind of subject matter, then TACKLE IT! On the plus side, Julia Stiles has the pouty, child-as-sex-symbol look nailed; and the rest of the cast also give some personality to their routinely drawn characters. All the ingredients for a good sleazy thriller are here, but sadly, it's all aimed at shocking only the most adolescent of sensibilities. Tasteful trash.