Big Shoes to Fill
Despite growing up in and around his father's shoe factory Charlie (Joel Edgerton) doesn't know a great deal about the business. And that is bad news as when his father suddenly dies he inherits the business, one which has debts and is struggling as no one buys hand made shoes anymore as they are too expensive. Whilst Charlie's girlfriend, estate agent Nicola (Jemima Rooper) can smell money in redeveloping the factory into apartments Charlie feels loyal to the staff that were loyal to his father. It is then that Charlie meets Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) a drag queen who bemoans that women's shoes are not made to hold the weight of cross dressing men and it inspires him with the help of the loyal Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts) to create shoes for drag queens. But having persuaded Lola to come on board as a designer he needs to convince the workforce that these shoes and Lola could be their saviour.
Before I watched "Kinky Boots" for the first time someone told me it was what Frank Capra would have made if he was making movies now and do you know what that isn't a bad description. Don't get me wrong as "Kinky Boots" in no "It's a Wonderful Life" but it has some similarities in the fact we have an ordinary guy trying to keep the family business running which he reluctantly inherited. And Joel Edgerton does a wonderful job of playing the ordinary guy, nervous, awkward and such a nice guy that he needs a strong woman behind him to keep pushing him on. Which leads to some fun romance with Lauren as they work together to save the business.
But there is of course the obvious difference between a Capra movie of old and a British comedy of now and we have Lola the drag queen and kinky red boots. Now there is the obvious side to this and we have the old fashioned workers including homophobic Don, played by Nick Frost, struggling with a drag queen and fetish footwear. We also get plenty of musical numbers as we enter Lola's club scene which Chiwetel Ejiofor impressing as he belts out some disco numbers.
And that leads me to Chiwetel Ejiofor the man who plays one of the most entertaining drag queens to have appeared on the big screen. Ejiofor is completely natural and not only brings the entertainment to the role of the singer, performer and looking killer in heels as a drag queen but brings depth so we get to understand a life of prejudice and a weariness from putting up with abuse.
Now Ejiofor's performance is really the icing on the cake as "Kinky Boots" is simply spot on from start to finish from the pacing, the look, the humour, the depth and especially the supporting performances. Jemima Rooper is brilliant as the pushy Nicola, Nick Frost is an entertaining walking cliche as Don who thinks women love him and Sarah-Jane Potts is simply cute and adorable as Lauren.
What this all boils down to is that "Kinky Boots" is in some ways what I can imagine Frank Capra would make now although I wonder whether he would do as good as job as Julian Jarrold has done as it is a memorable and enjoyable movie with so much innocent charm.
