The last time we saw anything Wizard of Oz related on the cinematic stage was more than a decade ago, with Sam Raimi’s often overlooked prequel effort, ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. What folks have managed to remember about that one, they usually recall between groans and mumble through palmed faces.

That was a film that was, and still is, criticized for lackluster special effects, a suspect cast, and an adhesion to a corny tone that bled into the film’s visuals, as well as impacted the screenplay. Raimi, in accordance with his cinematic character, preferred kinetic camera movements and sharp colors and lighting over other such worries about tonal cohesion and character, at least in that instance.

What’s become odd in retrospect, factoring in the release of the topic at hand, ‘Wicked’, is that the new film struggles with the same issue in a slightly different way. Sure, Wicked’s computer generated elements are cleaner, and much glossier, than anything the world of Oz had to offer in 2013.

But the new film doesn’t just utilize those effects — it relies on them. Wicked has become yet another unintentional bastion for slapping CGI on every single scene, and every little thing. Impressive practical sets here are washed out with brown and grey digital overlays; the sunshine has lost the colorful aura which defines it, and the moon emits only a flat blue hue.

Where is the true middle ground for bringing Oz to life on the visual front, then? That still isn’t clear, but in the case of the newer film, we’ve taken a step in the right direction with many new merits.

Viewers of “The Real Housewives” have grown accustomed to watching stars of the popular Bravo franchise battle it out over a range of topics — from the superficial (questionable leather pants, tipping off paparazzi at Disneyland) to the serious (alleged embezzlement, mortgage fraud). But it’s rarer to get cast members’ unfiltered stances on political or social issues.

Garcelle Beauvais, however, has something to say.

The Haitian actor and producer, whose tell-it-like-it-is approach has made her a standout on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” is having some of her most strikingly real moments this year after the cameras stopped rolling on the show’s 14th season.

When we speak, it’s just hours after former President Trump is declared the winner of the 2024 election, and Beauvais is audibly shaken by the news.

“I know it sounds so simple and naive, but I don’t understand how the bad guy keeps winning,” she says, choking up, her soft voice tinged with disbelief. “He told us exactly who he is, what he’s going to do, and we still vote for him. I don’t understand.”

Beauvais’ reaction is political and personal: In the wake of Trump amplifying false claims about Haitian immigrants during his lone debate with his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, Beauvais posted a video to social media condemning his comments.

“Staying silent in the face of racism and hate is something that I refuse to do,” she said in the video, speaking in both English and Haitian Creole, which has been viewed more than 1.1 million times on Instagram. “The lies that have been spewed about the Haitian community — about my community — have been disgusting, deeply hurtful and dangerous.”

She sat on the video for a week, wary of the risk in posting it. “But how could I not stand up for my people?” she says when I first visit her Porter Ranch home in late September.

“I looked over my shoulder for the two days afterward, honestly. I would drive to pick up the boys or drive to go run errands, and I would look over my shoulder.”

Would she have been open to the idea of cameras capturing moments like these?

“I think it’s real,” she says. “You can’t have a reality show and not see what my reality as a Black woman is.”

She adds: “I get it — it’s entertainment. We’re glamorous, and we fight about stupid stuff. I understand that. But I also think that if it’s reality, you have to show what’s really happening.”

They are never easy, but for Beauvais, public conversations about sensitive subjects have become par for the course. Although she built a career as a model and actor in such projects as “Coming to America,” “The Jamie Foxx Show” and “NYPD Blue,” it’s on “The Real Housewives” that the 57-year-old has found her widest audience — “White women now love me,” she says. On the show, she’s brought frank, provocative discussions about race and privilege to the often shallow waters of reality TV.

“The reach of this show is so different and across the board. I didn’t realize the scope of it, of how the fans are invested. I remember my friend texted me [during my first season]. She’s like ‘You’re trending.’ For what? I’ve done so many things, I’ve worked with incredible people in the industry. But it wasn’t until this show that everything blew up.”

That being herself would become her biggest role yet wasn’t obvious at first. While she was a casual viewer of “Beverly Hills,” and she knew, to varying degrees, members of its cast, she hadn’t ever considered being a part of it. But in the lead-up to the show’s 10th season, producers approached Beauvais’ manager. He advised her not to do it, adamant that it would kill her career.

“There was still some taboo about it,” Beauvais says of actors pivoting to unscripted projects. “But when I transitioned into acting, they didn’t think models could walk and talk either.”

Garcelle Beauvais became the first black woman cast on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” “I remember before my first season aired, I freaked out. I called my friend to walk me off the ledge. It was feeling the pressure of being the first black woman — am I supposed to be a certain black woman that people want to see?”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

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Beauvais embraced the idea. Most of her acting jobs took her out of L.A., and she wanted a gig that would keep her around as her twin sons, Jax and Jaid, began middle school. She ran it by then-cast member Lisa Rinna and Rinna’s husband, actor Harry Hamlin, while at a party hosted by producer Mark Burnett. “I saw Harry, and I was like, ‘What do you think?’ And he goes, ‘You know, I didn’t think it was good for Rinna either, but it does what it does.’”

She joined in 2020, becoming the first Black woman to be cast on the show, and she made her debut during a trip to New York City for cast member Kyle Richards’ fashion show. Over drinks with Teddi Mellencamp, Erika Girardi and Denise Richards, a friend since their time working together on a failed ’90s TV pilot, Beauvais quickly shed any inhibitions when she revealed a dating snafu as a single parent: “Once, one of my kids found my vibrator in my bed,” she said.

“I’ll never forget her first scene [on ‘The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’] — I never called them scenes because a scene is where they say ‘action,’” says Richards, who was in her second season on the show when Beauvais joined. “So we were about to be filming a moment. And she didn’t know that she was supposed to start. I told her, ‘They don’t say “action.” And she goes, ‘I don’t know when to go.’ I go, ‘Well, I’ve learned when you have that mic on, you go.’ It was a learning curve for us.”

Beauvais has settled in since then, opening up about the end of her nine-year marriage to agent Michael Nilon (and her revenge on her cheating ex), and calling out cast members, like when she confronted Dorit Kemsley last season for exhibiting, in her view, “unconscious Karen behavior.” It’s played to mix results with viewers. But Beauvais has learned “you just gotta keep doing you.”

“I remember before my first season aired, I freaked out. I called my friend to walk me off the ledge,” says Beauvais, who also became a co-host on the now-defunct daytime talk show “The Real” around that time. “It was feeling the pressure of being the first Black woman — am I supposed to be a certain Black woman that people want to see? I just want to be me. I don’t want to pretend.”

Sutton Stracke, left, Garcelle Beauvais and Dorit Kemsley in Season 11 of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

(Erik Voake / Bravo)

Beauvais says an unexpected bright spot has been her friendship with Sutton Stracke, a wealthy divorced woman and West Hollywood boutique owner who also joined the show in Season 10. It initially seemed like Beauvais, Rinna and Richards were poised to be a Hollywood trio to be reckoned with on the show, but then Rinna and Richards left the series. Stracke and Beauvais, who connected over their experience as newbies and single mothers, became a fan-favorite duo.

As Stracke describes it, their friendship is genuine, with the tenderness and hiccups of any dynamic. When Stracke had a medical emergency during last season’s reunion, Beauvais left the taping to be with her friend at the hospital until she was discharged, six hours later, at midnight. When Stracke was late for a recent lunch date, a peeved Beauvais stormed off upon her arrival. “I insulted her time,” Stracke says. “I understood that and I was wrong. I apologized profusely. Later, we had a laugh about [it].” And while the show has been known to end or strain friendships, Stracke is confident their bond can withstand it.

“We have never worried one day that this show would get in the way of our friendship, and we talked about it after Denise left,” says Stracke, who recently helped plan a baby shower for Beauvais’ 33-year-old son Oliver. “I just remember saying, ‘You know what, Garcelle, no matter what, we are friends, and I see us being friends for life.’ And she said, ‘Absolutely, this is just a television show. Our friendship is worth so much more.’”

Andy Cohen, the Bravo talk show host and executive producer of the “Housewives” franchise, credits Beauvais for not approaching her time on the show as a character.

“She’s herself,” he says. “I think if it was as a role, she’d be throwing wine glasses around. And that’s not who she is.

“But also I really relate, as a viewer and as a parent, to what she shares about raising the boys. And in terms of a group dynamic, she is someone who absolutely does not break a sweat when sharing her feelings and opinions, and that is the hallmark of a great housewife.”

Garcelle Beauvais, center, with Kyle Richards in Season 14 of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

(Griffin Nagel / Bravo)

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Beauvais may not approach a new season the way she would an acting job, but it does require some preparation, like accruing outfits: “When I see things on sale, I grab them because I know we’re going to be doing a lot of things and you don’t have time during the season to really shop.” Still, she’s in a curious position as an actor who is taking a swim in the fish bowl at a time when the long-running reality franchise is confronting growing pains — cast members are sometimes criticized for performing for the cameras or for not having interesting storylines, a term Beauvais has come to despise.

“I hate that word,” she says. “You cannot predict what seven other women are gonna do. It’s almost like improv. You say, ‘Yes, and …’ Cameras are supposed to be following our lives. Whatever they get, that’s our story.”

With this season of “Housewives,” Beauvais’ fifth, she has had to contend with Jax’s decision to discontinue appearing in the series after experiencing online bullying. She says she struggled with how to honor his decision and guard his privacy while also making sure that it didn’t come across like he didn’t exist in her life.

“I felt guilty because I’m like, ‘I brought this onto him,’” she says. “If he wasn’t on the show, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Garcelle Beauvais has leveraged her “Real Housewife” visibility to help advance her scripted pursuits, collaborating with Lifetime on several movies as a star and executive producer. “To be in a place where I’m working now at my age, it’s amazing,” she says. “I think it shows women not to give up. It shows women that you can do whatever.”

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Asked if she would quit the show if her sons made the request, she says she would.

“One thousand percent, if the boys said something like that, I would honor that,” Beauvais says. “They haven’t. When Jax said how he felt, I respected that, and didn’t push him … And it’s not always up to us. Bravo has a say in who comes back and who doesn’t.”

For now, she’s got a job to do. She says she’s on better terms with Kyle Richards and Kemsley this season. “I feel that I showed up and I was engaging. I said how I felt,” she says. “Was I maybe too nosy about Kyle’s relationship? Sure, but who isn’t?

“I really came in with this idea that I was going to meet people where they’re at. With Dorit, I felt like last season, she was living in a bubble. So I met her where she’s at, and I felt like she surprised me when she came in — you haven’t seen this — and apologized to me.”

And she has continued to leverage her “Real Housewife” visibility to help advance her scripted pursuits, which this season’s premiere episode captures. She’s been involved with several Lifetime movies as a star and executive producer, including “Terry McMillan Presents: Tempted by Love,” playing a chef who strikes up a romance when she returns home to care for an ailing aunt, and “Black Girl Missing,” as a mother who turns to a community of amateur internet sleuths to find her missing daughter.

“Garcelle straddles the perfect intersection between being accessible and aspirational,” says Lifetime movie executive Karen Kaufman Wilson, who has appeared on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” when cameras document Beauvais’ Hollywood ventures. “So as a person who watches her on television, there’s a part of you thinks, ‘I can go to Zara and buy that sparkly outfit and try to find the right guy like Garcelle does.’ In terms of ‘The Real Housewives’ and Lifetime, Garcelle is very pointed about using her platform for good, talking about issues that matter to her — the Black girl missing, fighting to try to get Kamala voted into office. We get an opportunity to have conversations about creative storytelling that still stays on message for her.”

Regardless, she’s grateful about the path she’s on. As someone born in Saint-Marc, Haiti, who moved to the U.S. when she was 7, her platform now — and its potential for good, whether it’s escapism or speaking out — is a bright spot.

“When I first got into this industry, they said women over 40 are considered irrelevant or they won’t work, especially if you’re a Black woman,” she says. “So to be in a place where I’m working now at my age, it’s amazing. I think it shows women not to give up. It shows women that you can do whatever. And I also think it’s important for my kids to see that I’m realizing my dreams too.”

The razzle-dazzle that’s Jon M. Chu’s bread and butter is on glorious display in “Wicked,” the big-screen version of the beloved Broadway musical.  

When it’s all about the spectacle of big, splashy production numbers, this prequel to “The Wizard of Oz” is thrilling, whether we’re in Munchkinland, the Emerald City or the campus of Shiz University, where a young Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good Witch of the North first cross paths. As we’ve seen from the director’s previous films including “Crazy Rich Asians” and “In the Heights,” Chu is uniquely adept at presenting an enormous song-and-dance extravaganza without getting lost in it. His sense of pacing and perspective draw us in and center us within the swirling fantasy. 

It helps greatly that he has deeply talented stars in Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande: magnetic multi-hyphenates who can meet every physical and emotional challenge of these iconic characters. Following in the footsteps of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth would seem like a daunting task, but Erivo and Grande bring their own vocal power and dramatic interpretation to the roles of Elphaba and Glinda, respectively. You truly feel the friendship between these opposites, particularly in one beautiful, wordless dance sequence where they forge their unlikely bond, which is moving in its understatement. That’s the foundation of this story, so it’s crucial that we know their connection is true for its destruction to be meaningful. 

Far less effective is the way Chu, working from a script by Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, wedges in the movie’s heavier themes of authoritarianism. Yes, they are baked into the story: We know from watching 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz” countless times that the wizard is a con artist who rules by fear. His deception is literally one of smoke and mirrors. That’s all in the source material of the “Wicked” stage production, as well, for which Holzman wrote the book and Stephen Schwartz wrote the music and lyrics. Here, in film form, the tone swings awkwardly between upbeat wonder and dark oppression. This is a world in which minorities are hunted, placed in cages and prevented from speaking, where a charismatic leader (a playfully evil Jeff Goldblum) persecutes a woman of color. It is not subtle, and it feels all-too relevant to our times, despite originating decades ago. It also drags down the energy of this epic tale. 

And yet, overstuffed as the film is at 2 hours and 40 minutes, this is only part one: “Wicked” ends where the intermission occurs in the stage show, with part two coming in November 2025. It’s a lot to ask of an audience. Still, people who love this story and these characters will be delighted, and there’s much here for people who aren’t familiar with the musical but are looking for a cinematic escape around the holidays. 

“Wicked” begins with Grande’s Glinda descending majestically into Munchkinland to inform her enthusiastic fans that the rumors are true: The witch really is dead. Then it flashes back to how she and the green-hued Elphaba (the Wicked Witch’s first name) became unlikely allies in college. Elphaba has always been bullied and ostracized because of the color of her skin; Glinda—or Galinda, as she’s known at this point—is a pretty, pampered mean girl who’s always gotten her way. (Bowen Yang is a hoot as one of her loyal sycophants.) 

But once they’re forced to room together, they eventually realize, to their surprise, that they genuinely see each other in a way no one ever has before. Galinda’s makeover anthem “Popular”—one of the most popular songs from the show—is among the film’s highlights, and a great example of the technical prowess “Wicked” offers. The costume design from Paul Tazewell (“West Side Story”) and production design from longtime Christopher Nolan collaborator Nathan Crowley are exquisite throughout but especially here. Alice Brooks’ cinematography is consistently wondrous, but her use of hot pink lighting as Galinda’s at the height of her power is really evocative.  

Chu’s usual choreographer, Christopher Scott, delivers again with vibrant, inspired moves, particularly in the elaborate “Dancing Through Life,” which takes place in the school’s rotating, multilevel library. “Bridgerton” star Jonathan Bailey gets a chance to show off his musical theater background here, and he’s terrifically charming as the glib Prince Fiyero, the object of both Elphaba and Galinda’s romantic interests. Michelle Yeoh brings elegance and just a hint of danger to her role as Madame Morrible, the university’s sorcery professor. And Peter Dinklage lends gravitas as the resonant voice of Dr. Dillamond, a goat instructor who, like other talking animals in Oz, finds himself increasingly in peril. 

But it’s that connection between Erivo and Grande that gives the film its emotional heft. Erivo does do much with her eyes to convey Elphaba’s sadness and loneliness and, eventually, her hope and determination. There’s a directness about her screen presence that’s immediate and engaging, and of course she can sing the hell out of these demanding songs. Grande meets her note for note and once again displays her comic chops, but it’s the little choices that make her portrayal of the perfect Galinda feel human: a jerky perkiness that’s slightly dorky. The blonde tresses and array of pink dresses scream confidence, but deep down she’s a try-hard whose desire to be liked is her driving motivation. 

As undeniably crowd-pleasing as “Wicked” is in its big moments, these smaller and more intimate details are just as magical.