The rise of resistance cinema in the era of Donald Trump

Mark Leydorf, Tribune News Service

A year ago, a passionate woman of color found her voice and took on an older, white carnival barker who was stoking bigotries to seize unchecked power. I’m not talking about Kamala Harris, but Elphaba Thropp from the box-office smash "Wicked." The Democratic nominee for president was unable to defy gravity in the end, but over in Oz, the battle is still raging. When we last saw Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) at the cliffhanger ending of "Wicked," she was preparing for war. The not-so-Wicked Witch of the West is back in theaters this weekend, and she’s ready to rumble.

When "Wicked: For Good" starts, though, she’s pretty down and out. The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) remains as Trumpy as ever, waging a vicious campaign to demonize and deport Oz’s animal citizens. Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), his PR manager, has stirred up propaganda to discredit our heroine, branding her as, well, it’s in the title. Meanwhile, Elphaba’s boy toy, Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), and her bestie, Glinda (Ariana Grande), have accepted shiny new jobs in Oz: He’s now Captain of the Wizard’s Guard, and she’s been promoted to Glinda the Good, which basically involves floating over to Munchkinland in a nifty bubble to give pep talks.

Hiding out in the woods, the best Elphaba can do is an occasional guerrilla action, freeing the enslaved animals building the Yellow Brick Road. But those who saw "Wicked" — and that’s a lot of us; the film made more than $750 million worldwide, according to BoxOfficeMojo — know better than to count her out.

"Wicked: For Good" is not, alas, that good. As fans of the Broadway musical on which it’s based know, all the best bits are in the first installment. And yet this brassy, candy-colored "Battle of Algiers" takes one of the clearest stands against authoritarianism and white supremacy you’ll find in theaters. It couldn’t be more timely.

According to Gallup, people worldwide have more worry, stress, sadness and anger than they did a decade ago. Its recent surveys in the US find that only 29% of Americans are satisfied with the direction their country is going, and they strongly dislike their leader: The only president to have had a lower average approval rating than Trump 2.0 (42%) so far was Trump 1.0 (41%). There’s a reason Republicans were routed in the off-year elections and 7 million people marched against the administration in the latest No Kings protest, on Oct. 18.

Filmmakers the world over are stepping into the breach. Probably the most notable political movie this year is Paul Thomas Anderson’s raucous, violent takedown of America’s immigration policy: the excellent and polarizing "One Battle After Another." The auteur’s latest epic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor as scrappy activists facing off against a racist police state embodied by a villainous Sean Penn. The movie has made a tidy $200 million, and stands to rake in more if its director and stars take home Oscars as expected.

The taut if somewhat clichéd political thriller "A House of Dynamite" offers a more subtle critique of the government. (The movie’s box office was negligible; it barely paused in theaters before its producer, Netflix Inc., released it online.) By keeping her main actor — the president — off-camera until the conclusion of the film, director Kathryn Bigelow leaves his character, ethics and intellect a mystery. For most of the movie, we’re engaged in a thought experiment: What would happen if a rogue nuclear missile launched over the Pacific, and our president was, say, the current occupant of the White House?

"The Mastermind" takes on the spread of shameless self-dealing. In this marvelously sly film from Kelly Reichardt, a clueless petty thief (Josh O’Connor from "Challengers") gets tripped up in Vietnam War-era social unrest. You’d almost miss the connection to national politics, except that the director keeps deviously flashing Richard Nixon’s grim mug on the televisions in the background of many scenes. (The movie’s made only about $1.3 million, but that’s pretty good for the slow-cinema auteur.)