Movie Vault

Reviewed by: Kat Babcock

From the British Isles comes another comedy with social implications. This time the laughs are on transexuality, entrepreneurship, jobs, and design talent. Four things that you wouldn’t expect to find in one film, but Kinky Boots ties them together on a level that makes the entire plot seem relatable.

Drag queens are more mainstream in British entertainment than they are in America, even if we exclude Dame Edna Everage, who seems to be in drag not as a man, not as a woman, but as a self-contained gender. The movie is in the naughty-but-nice British tradition in which characters walk on the wild side but never seem to do anything else there Kinky Boots is based on a true story. Charlie (Joel Edgerton) is a feckless guy who cannot wait to get out of Northampton to lead a bigger life in London. He is dismayed to inherit his family shoe factory and further dismayed to find that business is far from booming. Charlie spends an afternoon firing people until a young woman at the factory (Sarah-Jane Potts) challenges him to find a better solution.

By chance, Charlie encounters the fabulous Lola; Lola is a nightclub singer. Lola is also a transvestite (Chiwetel Ejiofor, the reason to see this film) and through Lola and her mates, Charlie finds a niche market creating sexy boots big enough and tough enough to be worn by adult men, who dress as women.
The story is a bit of drag, pardon the expression, whenever Chiwetel Ejiofor is not on the screen. Furious and flamboyant as Lola/Simon, Ejiofor owns the movie, and the picture only feels fully alive when he’s present.

Kinky Boots rises to a whole other lever during its nightclub sequences. Off stage, it is shakier, suffering from the tale’s over familiarity, although even with that it offers certain charms, notably in the way Lola and shy, skittish Charlie almost imperceptibly bond, drawn together by issues with their fathers.

Kinky Boots is packed with tender insights and sassy one-liners. Told against a soundtrack of shoe-themed hits, including “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’,” “Cha Cha Heels,” and “In These Shoes,” “Kinky Boots” tells a familiar story, it’s a story (of tolerance, agency and hope) that should be repeated in future films.

Writers Tom Firth and Geoff Deane, along with TV director Julian Jarrold, have given tart spice and touching sensitivity to a conventional triumph-of-the-misfit/underdog tale. Plus there are several rousing musical numbers performed by cabaret drag queens. On the movie gauge of 1 to 10, “Kinky Boots” is a vampy, naughty 9. Best of all, it might just change your mind.