Debuting on Broadway in 2003, “Wicked” — with lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Winnie Holzman — is an origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good, onetime friends who could have been more powerful as a duo. However, if you’ve seen the show, you know it is about more than that, a piece that addresses, among other ideas, the rise of fascism.

“Wicked” does run longer than the typical two-act stage musical, at least somewhat justifying the two-part film approach. Still, news this first half alone clocked in at more than two and a half hours was shocking.

Well, here’s the “Wicked” truth: Director Jon M. Chu and his myriad collaborators behind and in front of the camera have made movie magic. This is a glorious, eye-popping, ear-delighting adaptation of the musical’s first act.

It defies gravity in the way even the most elaborate and expensive stage production cannot.

That this cinematic “Wicked” will be a visual feast is apparent almost instantly. However, it isn’t until a few minutes into the film — as the residents of Oz revel in the news that the Wicked Witch is dead — that we meet Ariana Grande’s Galinda (yes, with a “Ga”) and understand that she is more than up to the comedic tasks of the role.

“It’s good to see me, isn’t it?” the bubbly blonde asks the gathered crowd upon descending from the sky in, well, a bubble.

Ariana Grande appears as Galinda early on in a scene from “Wicked.” (Courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Penned by Holzman and Dana Fox, “Wicked” then flashes us back to the time of the birth of Elphaba — the eventual wicked one — at which point it is clear she is both unnaturally green and possessing of great magical gifts.

Back in the present day, Galinda is asked if it is not true — was she not friends with the deceased witch? Yes, she allows, they knew each other long ago at school, and thus we transition to the film’s main storyline, set in the more recent past at Shiz University.

There, Galinda and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) begin as roommates and enemies, the former accidentally offering to share her private suite with the latter in an attempt to curry favor with Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), the school’s headmistress and dean of sorcery studies. Morrible takes an immediate interest not in her but instead in Elphaba.

Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba works to harness her magical abilities in “Wicked.” (Courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Now living together, Galinda and Elphaba loathe each other. Although Galinda sees herself as giving, she is very selfish, initially giving Elphaba only a tiny portion of the suite.

However, after Elphaba makes a kind gesture toward her, Galinda is moved and flips the script in the film’s most touching scene.

Elphaba’s gift with magic — a gift she struggles to control — brings her to the attention of the mysterious but much-celebrated Wizard of Oz (a perfectly cast Jeff Goldblum).

Jeff Goldblum is The Wizard of Oz, and Michelle Yeoh is Madam Morrible in “Wicked.” (Courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Complicating matters for Elphaba — who’s long dreamed of impressing the wizard, as expressed in the catchy number “The Wizard and I” — is that the talking animals of Oz are being blamed for the citizens’ problems, which she sees as unfair. She and Galinda are taught by one such animal, a literal scape-goat voiced regally by Peter Dinklage (“Game of Thrones”), the treatment of whom breaks her heart.

She finds an unlikely ally in her crusade to do something about this situation in Fiyero (Jonathan Baily, “Bridgerton”), a handsome prince who enrolls in the school, where he wants everyone to think he is incredibly shallow, an idea furthered by his immediate pairing with the smitten Galinda — who offers him a tour of the campus that includes “the book place.”

Jonathan Bailey is the handsome and seemingly shallow Fiyero in “Wicked.” (Courtesy of Universal Pictures)

If you know the show, it shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler to say the film builds to a climactic sequence constructed around what is easily its best song, “Defying Gravity.” As presented here, it is as moving as ever — maybe more — an affirming and, well, defiant anthem that showcases the vocal gifts of Grande and, especially, Erivo, a stage veteran whose film credits include 2019’s “Harriet” and 2022’s “Pinocchio.”

Man, “Wicked” ends on a high note.

(“Wicked” contains some scary action, thematic material and brief suggestive material.)

Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba, and Ariana Grande is Galinda in “Wicked.” (Courtesy of Universal Pictures)

‘WICKED’

Rated PG. At the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, AMC Boston Common, South Bay Center, Causeway, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport and suburban theaters.

Grade: A-