In the forest thick, a trick of light

My new dress arrived from Victorian Maiden and I couldn't resist getting dressed up in it straight away even if I didn't have anywhere to go. I pre-ordered this back in July as a birthday present to myself, the first time I've ever done that despite wearing EGL for so many years but I've always wanted an original Victorian Maiden Classical Doll dress. To me it feels like just the right balance of being historically inspired whilst still being wearable everyday (I know some might disagree with that statement, but I am chronically overdressed always! Not to be dramatic but I'd rather die than wear athleisure). The hardest part was picking a colour! There was a choice of 12 to match birthstones, and although I bought it for my birthday I didn't fancy Ruby. I wanted blue as it's my favourite colour, so picked the lighter option over the navy as this dress is regularly released in navy so felt less special, but I would have liked it even lighter as I was worried about it being a bit bright. And I was very tempted by both of the greens! I'm really pleased with my choice though! It's giving Alice in Wonderland vibes without looking like straight up cosplay, which is my favourite vibe.

I'm trying to make more effort to take photos of my outfits again. My confidence took a big hit in 2023 which has kept me fairly isolated, but I used to love posting my silly little outfits online and it's a habit I'd like to get back into. I want to find community again, and to do that I need to put myself out there. I've always loved dressing up, but I started to prefer dissolving into the background and I feel like I lost myself. I've tried being braver the past few months, and I guess the culmination of that is starting to post online again, and trying to get rid of the idea that an outfit has to be 'worthy', or the photos meet a certain standard, or whether or not I even have anything to say beyond "Here's an outfit I wore". Because sometimes that's all there is to say and that's okay!

All Of Them Witches

Rosemary's Baby is my favourite film of all time. I'd heard that a prequel called Apartment 7A was in the works and saw the trailer, but I wasn't exactly sure how to go about watching it on which streaming service (it's such an unnecessary convoluted mess with services having different availability in different countries) so when I saw the DVD for sale I didn't think too hard about it, but I really wasn't sure what to expect of it going in. I really wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did!

Rosemary and Terry in Rosemary's Baby

If you've seen Rosemary's Baby you'll remember Terry, who lives with Minnie and Roman Castevet at the beginning of the movie. She briefly meets Rosemary in the laundry room, before seemingly committing suicide shortly after (but that's up for interpretation!) Apartment 7A expands on Terry's story, fleshing out what little we know of her and her history with the Satanic Castevets.

It had a lot of homages to Rosemary's Baby, mirroring particular scenes almost exactly (such as Terry waking up in her bed the morning after her night with the devil) but it still felt fresh and it was clearly a homage rather than a copy and didn't feel cheap. I just really liked and appreciated all of the nods to the original plot, such as mentions of Adrian in passing which felt like a wink to the fans. It doesn't waste time setting up and does assume a prior knowledge though, so it's probably not a good film to go into blind. I think you'd need to see Rosemary's Baby first to really be able to enjoy this film to it's fullest.

Terry with Minnie and Roman in Apartment 7A

I only have two real issues with the plot: Rosemary is seen in the basement with Terry before Miss Gardenia dies which doesn't make sense as Rosemary and Guy live in Miss Gardenia's apartment, but this was the only plot hole I noticed. I also felt Dianne West played Minnie a little too overtly cruel, which kind of leads into what makes the original so special and where they missed the mark. In the original outside of Rosemary's drugged visions we don't see anything supernatural, and there's nothing sinister about the Castevets beyond their lack of boundaries. Which is important as it plays into the idea of female hysteria; Rosemary isn't believed, she tells people she's in active danger and they call her husband to come and collect her despite him being one of the accused because she holds no power - that's her vulnerability, and that's what the Castevets preyed on along with Guy's narcissism. In Apartment 7A there's no question as to whether Terry is paranoid or not as the film makes it explicitly clear that there are supernatural forces from the very beginning, and Terry doesn't feel vulnerable enough. She's proud and headstrong and has unwavering support in her friend Annie. In Rosemary's Baby we know Terry very briefly, gleaning details of her life from what she tells Rosemary in the basement and snippets we hear from Minnie through the thin walls - but we know she's isolated, a recovering drug addict that Minnie and Roman offer a roof to as she's homeless, and she's endlessly grateful to them for that: "I'd be dead without Minnie and Roman, that's the God's honest truth". In this movie she's an ambitious dancer trying to make it on Broadway and suffers an injury, becoming addicted to painkillers and sleeping on Annie's sofa when she can't work. Which is a vulnerable position to be in for sure, but not quite the rock bottom that original Terry is at, and through sanitizing her drug addiction and homelessness much of Minnie and Roman's casual sinister-ism is removed, so they resort to actual cruelty to make up for it which feels so out of character. And it's a shame as it feels like the filmmakers are deeming the original Terry as not relatable enough for audiences to feel sympathetic towards instead of just giving her additional depth.

This is all looking at the film on a much deeper level though, and overall I did really enjoy it! It was a great homage to the original, and felt like an equal mix of Rosemary's Baby and the remake of Suspiria (the original is another of my favourites!). It's a fun movie and worth a watch!

Are people born Wicked? Or do they have Wickedness thrust upon them?

I felt a lot of trepidation around the movie adaptation of Wicked, which is why it’s taken me a while to finally get around to seeing it today. I cannot stress enough how much I love Wicked and what it means to me. Musical theatre meant the world to me growing up, I lived on the outskirts of London and I'm fortunate that seeing shows on the West End was an experience I grew up with. I fell away from it as a teenager for various personal reasons, and I kind of forgot all about musical theatre for a while. I didn't even listen to the soundtracks, and distinctly remember skipping through the songs when they'd accidentally come up on my shuffle playlists. I never outright deleted them though, so perhaps part of me always knew I'd come back eventually? The time between was definitely my 'dark ages' with rock bottom self-esteem, persistent art block and the feeling of loss of identity that came from losing the ability to draw which was so important to me, and crippling anxiety, depression, and agoraphobia. As I finished university in 2018 parts of that began to shed in my final weeks for reasons I still can't name. Perhaps just the feeling of having achieved what had previously felt so unachievable? And about two months later, whilst still on my Bambi legs of rediscovering who I was and what made me happy, I by chance happened to listen to the Wicked soundtrack. It was so out of the blue, I was simply watching a YouTuber's monthly favourites and she happened to mention that she'd discovered Dear Evan Hansen which was a title that meant nothing to me as I was so far out of that world, but hearing her enthusiasm made me smile and I made a simple decision that I wanted to listen to the Wicked Original Broadway Cast Recording that evening. It feels like complete and utter serendipity, if there's such a thing as fate it was definitely giving me a nudge into a particular direction that night. I never used to even like Wicked, so I have no idea what made me choose that one but I'm so thankful I did. Something about it that particular evening just spoke to me in a way that it never had before, and I was instantly hooked. I then read The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz in two days, the first book I'd managed to read in years due to my depressive lack of motivation, and then quickly devoured the novel of Wicked and fell in love with the extra layers to the characters which aren't conveyed in the musical. And then began my regular trips down to London to see as many shows as possible, researching all of my previous favourite theatre actors and filling myself in on their careers that I'd missed. I've since traveled to New York alone to fulfil my dream of seeing shows on Broadway (funded by selling most of my possessions, so it was a real labour of love getting there!), of course saw Wicked on Broadway among other shows, met my favourite actor Aaron Tveit and gave him a piece of my artwork, and even went to the theatre in Korea to see a production in a language I don't understand. Also drawing Wicked characters made me enthusiastic and enjoy illustration again after years long burnout. And maybe these sound like small things to you, but to me these things form so much of who I am and so much of my world, and I have Wicked to thank for all of it. It literally made me who I am today. And if I hated this movie, if they'd gotten it wrong, it would be the version most impressed upon the public consciousness and that only made my anxiety about it worse.

The movie had a terrible trailer which made it look like Oz The Great And Powerful (which is a slur), and the ridiculous press tour and frankly weird behaviour by Cynthia and Adriana really didn't ease my nerves. Most of all I was upset with the casting of Fiyero though - Fiyero is one of my favourites and a character that means a great deal to me, and in the original novel he’s written as an indigenous man of colour who suffers a lot of racism and othering because of his skin colour and different culture which forms a large part of how he relates to Elphaba. The musical dumbs him down a great deal, but with the director stating outright that he planned to bring elements of the novel into the movie I had high hopes which were quickly dashed at the casting announcement of Jonathan Bailey. I did enjoy his performance as Fiyero, he can sing and dance and he had good chemistry with Elphaba and I’m not going to take any of those things away from him - but he looks 40, he lacks depth, and I’m disappointed that the one canonically brown character is white which matters so much because it forms so much of his connection to Elphaba! He’s the only one who truly understands her. And I feel let down to be promised elements from the novel, only for them to be entirely missing.

I am delighted at how accurate the movie is to the stage version though! My disappointment is solely with Fiyero and the lacking depth I felt promised, as an adaptation of the musical alone I cannot fault the film. I always believe movie adaptations of musicals should be elevated versions of what’s on stage - give it the sets and movie magic that can’t be achieved on stage, but keep the bones of the piece the same. And that’s exactly what this film is. I enjoyed that it gave some of the songs breathing space and context, some aspects I downright preferred such as Dr Dillamomd and Something Bad which is a bit of a dull point on stage to be honest.

I always wanted to see Jeff Goldblum play The Wizard, he’s who I've always head cannoned as The Wizard when reading both the original L Frank Baum books and Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. The fact that it came true in this movie is a dream come true for me! I’ve seen some criticism of his singing, which I understand but honestly don’t care about. Of all the characters, I feel the Wizard and Madam Morrible are the two who can get away with weaker singing talent as they’re both more about the personality and the acting choices, and Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh both delivered in spades and I wouldn’t change a thing.

I also felt more emotionally connected to the musical than I've felt in a long time, especially during Defying Gravity. I don’t know if it’s because the pace was slowed down, if it was the acting choices, or simply the way it was framed, but I felt lines jumping out at me that I know are there and have always been poignant, but somehow felt even more so. To see Glinda go along with everything only to be embraced by Madam Morrible at the end actually sent a chill through me, showing how easy it is to be manipulated if you’re a people pleaser and don't stand up for what you believe in and share how you really feel. Also earlier in the film when Elphaba is dancing at the Ozdust Ballroom, defiantly, humiliated and crying but still being brave, I felt that. And I’m so glad those emotional beats were so powerful, as the stage show can happen at such a speed that sometimes it feels glossed over and superficial. I felt like I was connecting with the musical all over again, and it was reigniting what it meant to me in the first place.

I know there have been a lot of complaints about the way the movie is two parts and how it makes it too long, and I'll be honest I was sceptical too. But now having seen it, I'm glad of the length. Whilst so far I don't feel like it's truly added anything to the plot from the novel, I think it benefits from the breathing space. And I enjoyed it so much it could be 8 hours long and I’d be happy!

So overall, as an adaptation of one of my favourite novels, I’m a little disappointed. But as an adaptation of my favourite musical? I couldn’t be happier.