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A well-worn genre gets, ahem,
'souled and healed' in British comedy Kinky Boots. Demonstrating
a timelessness that Ugg boots can only envy, it's another take
on that 'little guy surviving against the odds in slightly quirky
circumstances' theme so beloved of British comedies. It's underpinned
by a showstopping performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dirty Pretty
Things) as a transvestite who inspires a line in shoes, and is
more uplifting than a nine-inch stiletto.
Transvestism in the movies
is rarely a pretty sight (cast your mind back to Patrick Swayze
in To Wong Foo..., if you dare), so full marks to Ejiofor for
making the character of Simon/Lola so well-rounded and uncaricatured.
His cross-dressing creation provides the inspiration for Charlie
Price (Joel Edgerton from Ned Kelly), a damp squib whose plans
to escape provincial Northampton life are dealt a body blow when
his father dies and he's stuck with an ailing shoe factory. Faced
with cut-price competition from the Third World, Charlie needs
to find a niche or lay off most of his staff. Step forward Lola
and 'her' size nines...
"ONE OF THE
BEST PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR"
It's no surprise to learn that
Kinky Boots is from the same team who gave us Calendar Girls.
Slick and impossible to dislike, it also presents a side of provincial
British life rarely seen nowadays: that of the frustrated dreamer.
Australian actor Edgerton does just enough to convince as a Midlander,
but this is ultimately Ejiofor's parade. He takes you beneath
Lola's sequins and delivers one of the best performances of the
year. Don't miss it.
www.bbc.co.uk/film
reviews
Is Chiwetel Ejiofor the best
young British actor we've got? He's certainly right up there.
Best known for his wrenching turn as a sad-eyed Nigerian immigrant
in Dirty Pretty Things, Ejiofor is everywhere at the moment,
even making it through last week's horrendous Four Brothers unscathed.
Ejiofor is definitely the headline
act in the cosy new Britcom Kinky Boots, based on the true story
of an ailing Northampton shoe factory which scrapped the brogues
and started turning out thigh-length boots for female impersonators.
He's a scream, and also the
film's heroically dignified centre, as cabaret drag artist Lola
- the inspiration for this line of fetish-wear - who pitches
up at Price and Sons after bumping into its befuddled new owner
Charlie (Aussie actor Joel Edgerton) one night in Soho.
The reaction on the factory
floor - from homophobically inclined Don (Nick Frost) in particular
- provides plenty of scope for Full Monty-style ensemble squirming,
and this certainly knocks the socks off Calendar Girls (which
came from the same producing team). This time, the ripped-from-the-headlines
story never seems to be clapping itself on the back too much.
And, as well as terrific opportunities
for Ejiofor to cut loose ("Burgundy? I inspired something
burgundy?"), there's some nice writing in the supporting
roles, particularly for Charlie's scary power-dressing girlfriend
Nicola (Jemima Rooper), who thinks he should sell up, and sweet
elfin colleague Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts).
There are big tunes and great
costumes, and I think people will have a very good time at Kinky
Boots, but it's a pity it doesn't push its plea for moving with
the times just an inch further.
Lola has to settle for those
boots rather than any kind of love interest. Or does she fancy
Charlie? Julian Jarrold's genial but timid film seems faintly
afraid to ask.
THE TELEGRAPH
Kinky Boots in the USA
"Kinky Boots," a crowd-pleasing British import
based on a true
story, may be this year's "Full Monty." After a festival
screening here,
this perky, very English comedy with rousing musical numbers,
about a
struggling Northamptonshire shoe company and the drag queen that
comes to
its rescue, had the audience on its feet. If the film draws the
audiences
that flocked to "Full Monty," a confident directing
debut by Julian
Jarrold, it could rack up good numbers. After Dad dies, Charlie,
played by
pallid actor Joel Edgerton, takes over the failing family business
Price
Shoes. Sooner than you can say Gloria Gaynor, he meets Lola (Chiwetel
Ejiofor), a transvestite with a keen business sense, a solid
set of values
and a larger than life presence -- think Naomi Campbell on steroids.
After
Charlie recruits Lola to advise at the factory, her presence,
among manly
men, raises questions of masculinity and femininity. Ejiofor
steals every
scene, as he vamps his way through brassy disco numbers in wigs
and
thigh-high, spike-heeled boots, the very boots that eventually
put Kinky
Boots on the runway in Milan. Anyone with a shoe fetish will
surely
experience a natural high. A multi-tasker, Lola helps salvage
Charlie's
love life and shed his years of inhibition -- almost -- while
she's at it.
"You coming all this way to see me," she coos. "I
feel like Oprah." Costume
designer, Sammy Sheldon gets the trashy chic outfits for Lola
and her
dancers just right. Danish cinematographer, Eigil Bryld's palette
of grays
and sienna evoke the world of fantasy and this is, after all,
a fairy tale.
Sura Wood
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With
trepidation, but spurred on by feisty, factory worker Lauren,
Charlie enlists Lola's help to diversify and make erotic women's
boots for a male market. But Lola's arrival at the provincial
factory is greeted with ridicule and animosity, not least by
Nicola. The hapless but lovable Charlie ploughs ahead with Lola,
who hiding her own insecurities, takes charge of design and employs
some of her show-stopping bravado to help win over the fractured
workforce and bring the boots to life.
