"Kinky Boots" crosses "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" with "The Full Monty" in combining the flash of entertaining transvestites with the pathos of working class unemployment.
While we don't often get to see factory workers in films these days, let alone factory processes, and this is ostensibly inspired by a true story of a traditional family-owned shoe manufacturer finding a new market (and I have a friend whose almost identical old business went under without finding such new products though Army boots kept it going during the Gulf War), the trajectory of the genial story feels too predictable.
The humor is mostly of the fish-out-of-water variety, whether it's the drag queen in the Midlands or the factory workers in the "Cabaret"-like club.
But just as the featured James Brown song we hear that the world would be nothing without a woman or a girl, this movie would be nothing without Chiwetel Ejiofor as the drag queen. And in the same year that he played a Detroit gangster in "Four Brothers". (Only Cillian Murphy has had a similar character range this same year from "Breakfast on Pluto" to "Red Eye".) Yes, that is truly him singing and dancing up a storm. We get a few flashbacks about a troubled childhood by the sea due to strict paternal expectations, but oddly don't see him in any relationships to explore more his sexual orientation. A nice touch though, regardless, is how his character gains self-esteem in finding something else he is good at. The choreography is better than in "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and the song selections for his numbers are wonderful, if more fantastical than realistic, especially at the climax, including the flashy medley of "These Boots Were Made for Walkin' / In These Shoes / Cha Cha Heels / Going Back to My Roots / Yes Sir I Can Boogie," plus additional numbers on the sound track, including, over the credits, the original of the late Kirsty MacColl's sardonic "In These Shoes."
Joel Edgerton is a sweetly wistful schmo as the factory scion torn between a new career in London with a fiancée who is less rigidly stereotyped than in most such movies and saving the family business by adapting to a niche market (very similar to the situation in the Scottish series "Monarch of the Glen"). The factory workers are an entertaining range of personalities, even if their interactions with the drag queens are as expected.
Unfortunately, Julian Jarrold's direction milks non-musical scenes for slow sentimentality, surprising as his background has mostly been in sharp, gritty Brit TV mysteries.
The shoes - and their matching costumes -- are fun. Too bad most of the good jokes were already seen in the trailer.
While we don't often get to see factory workers in films these days, let alone factory processes, and this is ostensibly inspired by a true story of a traditional family-owned shoe manufacturer finding a new market (and I have a friend whose almost identical old business went under without finding such new products though Army boots kept it going during the Gulf War), the trajectory of the genial story feels too predictable.
The humor is mostly of the fish-out-of-water variety, whether it's the drag queen in the Midlands or the factory workers in the "Cabaret"-like club.
But just as the featured James Brown song we hear that the world would be nothing without a woman or a girl, this movie would be nothing without Chiwetel Ejiofor as the drag queen. And in the same year that he played a Detroit gangster in "Four Brothers". (Only Cillian Murphy has had a similar character range this same year from "Breakfast on Pluto" to "Red Eye".) Yes, that is truly him singing and dancing up a storm. We get a few flashbacks about a troubled childhood by the sea due to strict paternal expectations, but oddly don't see him in any relationships to explore more his sexual orientation. A nice touch though, regardless, is how his character gains self-esteem in finding something else he is good at. The choreography is better than in "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and the song selections for his numbers are wonderful, if more fantastical than realistic, especially at the climax, including the flashy medley of "These Boots Were Made for Walkin' / In These Shoes / Cha Cha Heels / Going Back to My Roots / Yes Sir I Can Boogie," plus additional numbers on the sound track, including, over the credits, the original of the late Kirsty MacColl's sardonic "In These Shoes."
Joel Edgerton is a sweetly wistful schmo as the factory scion torn between a new career in London with a fiancée who is less rigidly stereotyped than in most such movies and saving the family business by adapting to a niche market (very similar to the situation in the Scottish series "Monarch of the Glen"). The factory workers are an entertaining range of personalities, even if their interactions with the drag queens are as expected.
Unfortunately, Julian Jarrold's direction milks non-musical scenes for slow sentimentality, surprising as his background has mostly been in sharp, gritty Brit TV mysteries.
The shoes - and their matching costumes -- are fun. Too bad most of the good jokes were already seen in the trailer.