‘Wicked: For Good’ review: Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande bring on the tears in musical finale

Thus ends the longest intermission ever.

A whole year after Elphaba belted “Defying Gravity” midair and the credits of “Wicked” rolled, the witch is back in “Wicked: For Good,” an emotional and elongated version of the Broadway musical’s second act.

Theater-lover common wisdom has it that the first half of composer Stephen Schwartz’s “Wizard of Oz” riff based on Gregory Maguire’s novel is infinitely better than what comes after the bathroom break.

Onstage that’s true. All its best ballads (“The Wizard and I”) and company numbers (“Dancing Through Life”) are front-loaded. It’s a bright and poppy YA boarding-school story about a misunderstood cultural icon that ends with power.

Darker and grimmer Act 2, though, by a hair, makes a meatier movie because characters aren’t as silly — the first flick was practically a pageant — and they are actually propelling toward a satisfying conclusion.

There is still something off about it. “Wicked” was mostly fun; a Dylan’s Candy Bar with singing. “For Good” is all tears — to the point I’m not sure kids will enjoy it much. The creatives were dumb (or greedy, or both!) to imbalance the musical by splitting it in two.

But the paths of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) as an activist rebel trying to inform oppressed Ozians that their vaunted wizard is a fraud, and that of Glinda (Ariana Grande) as a popular-if-conflicted government official tasked with raising morale with glittery propaganda is far more compelling than “We weren’t friends, and then we were!”.

There’s a sole beam of lightness through the storm clouds. That belongs to Jeff Goldblum’s Wizard, who croons an old-fashioned showbiz song called “Wonderful,” playfully telling idealist Elphaba, “you’ve got to give the people what they want.”

Plenty of L. Frank Baum’s magical creations make their awaited entrances.

The Wicked Witch of the East, Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow and Dorothy all shuffle in. Although a lot of their rather childish backstories should’ve been cleaned up from Winnie Holzman’s Broadway book.

And, like the Tin Man, the film finds a beating heart.

The love triangle between Elphaba, Glinda and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) hits harder than it tends to do on Broadway thanks to Bailey’s fervor and genuine concern.

That said, audience members will stifle laughs when, at the beginning of “As Long As You’re Mine,” essentially a Bonnie Tyler-style PG sex song sung by Elphie and her man, Erivo dons what has to be the largest gray sweater ever made.

It looks like she’s about to go dog sledding.

Even with a lotta wool, the pair of lead performances are richer and more poignant. Fabulous, really. Erivo, who has an easier handle on the Wicked Witch of the West’s serious side than her cackle, is giving surely the best movie-musical vocal turn since Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls.”

Mixing strong, to-the-rafters singing with intimate, subtle scene work isn’t easy. Thank goodness Erivo can do it.

And she continues to have a wonderful rapport with the delightful Grande, who digs deeper as Glinda’s engagement is on the rocks and she questions the meaning of her life.

Beefing up Grande’s role is one of the forgivable ripples of tacking on so much padding to the “Wicked” films, which total nearly five hours.

What should have never happened, however, is allowing no-good-deed Schwartz to transparently compete for an Oscar by ramming in two atrocious new songs:

“There’s No Place Like Home,” for Erivo, which just makes you wish you were listening to “Home” from “The Wiz” instead.

And Grande gets “The Girl in the Bubble,” a soft, existential-crisis ditty that would be forgettable were it not for its moronic lyrics.

“It’s time for her bubble to pop,” sang Glinda as my ears handed in their two weeks notice.

Once we arrive at the sweet climactic friendship duet “For Good,” though, those indulgences are forgiven.

Director Jon M. Chu shoots it with tender simplicity and just lets the pair connect and feel. He wisely shows much more restraint in Part Two. There was a symphony of sniffles in my theater, and not because of cold-and-flu season.

Intermission of “Wicked” lasted an entire year. And now begins “For Good”’s four-month-long curtain call — a k a the road to the Oscars.