Drôles de bottes

"Kinky Boots" is a delightful film based on a true story about the travails of a shoe manufacturing factory set in Northampton, England. When Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton) takes over the family shoe business, he discovers the company is practically out of business. After laying off a bunch of people, one of the young women he's making "redundant" tells him the company needs to find its niche. He finds it by accident when he helps a drag queen named Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who's about to be attacked by a group of men. After watching Lola's shows, Charlie decides the niche will be shoe wear for "a variety of men," i.e., drag queens et al., who have trouble finding womens shoes that fit. He invites Lola to Northampton to help design and test the shoes.

Funny, warm, with characters you care about, "Kinky Boots" says something about societal attitudes towards those who are different and what it truly means to be a man, but doesn't beat you over the head with it. It has a great story, lots of humor, and excellent acting, particularly from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Joel Edgerton. While everyone else in the film complex was at "The Da Vinci Code" and "MI: 3", several of us were being royally entertained by an old-fashioned story. We loved every minute of it.

Kinky Boots is a cheeky, fun little movie that has a simple message, but a life all its own! It is part of the new wave of irreverent British comedies and it holds its own against the rest of the pack.

Chiwetel Ejiofor shines in this film, proving once again that he's an actor to watch. After compelling turns in Inside Man and Dirty Pretty Things (among others), he defies convention in Kinky Boots--this is not an actor who can be type cast! He is riveting as Lola/Simon, convincing through and through.

There are some subplots that fall a little flat, but the story is very cute overall. The actors are uniformly good, but Ejiofor stands out. In addition, the production design is also pretty well done--the drag sequences are hysterical and a joy to behold. This film put a gigantic smile on my face that stayed put for the rest of the day!

I'm a Northamptonian and just watched the film in Northampton at the Northampton premiere. I'm slightly Northamptoned out. Excellent British comedy, I enjoyed it a lot more than Calendar Girls.

I normally find these kind of films deeply predictable, but this one surprised me. It has a bit of a deep and meaningful message, but never gets lost as to what it is along the way, and keeps the laughs going.

Somewhat bizarre depiction of Northampton however - every other shot is either of a weird northern-like back alley or of northern-like houses against countryside... and I don't think you've been able to see fields like those from Northampton railway station for at least 60 years. You don't really get the impression that Northampton is one of the UK's largest towns!

Well worth a watch. And points go to whoever spots the Northampton Saints (rugby team) mug.

This movie is about old-fashioned values like decency and unselfishness. Though the premise, an old style English shoe factory avoiding bankruptcy by designing boots for drag queens sounds sleazy, this movie is squeaky clean entertainment suitable for children.

The camera work is entertaining, especially, oddly the closeup scenes of shoes being manufactured, streams of colour zipping along to the upbeat music.

It is a movie without villains. The conflict comes from selfish vs unselfish motives, self direction vs worrying what others think, despair vs taking responsibility.

Of course the theme of tolerance for diversity is woven through. The movie does not have the usual silly Hollywood tolerance breakthroughs. It comes in fits and starts with back pedaling and tolerance from surprising sources.

The lead drag queen Lola sings better than anyone on American Idol, in a genre all her own. The musical numbers are far better than you will see an any real world drag show. These are not female impersonators. None of the drag queens would ever pass as female.

This is a character-based tragi-comedy about wildly different outcasts interacting. Of course the basic plot is predictable if you watch the trailers and use your intellect. But that is not how to watch this comedy. It is a bit like complaining that Lucille Ball was inevitably going to get herself covered in some sort of mess in the Long Trailer or that a Marx brothers comedy would end in a pie fight. Immerse yourself in the movie's reality. I was genuinely surprised by the ending, though in retrospect it was inevitable. Plot twists like a murder mystery is not what this movie is about. If all you care about is plot, skip this movie; it will go over your head.

All said, unless you have a heart of stone, you will come out smiling and more optimistic than when you went in.

This film is very typical of the standard British made film and in that way bears similarities to 'The Full Monty' (1997), 'Brassed Off' (1996), 'Fisherman's Friends' (2019)and 'Calendar Girl's' (2003) among others. The type that you know that you will always get a feel good ending with and in that respect they are a bit formulaic. But this particular film is a bit more joyful than most, the depressing element is subdued by the humour and calmed by the brash and vibrant nature of Lola and her singing.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is brilliant as the character of Lola and his kinky boots must be hard to fill in the stage production, but I'm not sure that Joel Edgerton was the right choice as Charlie, he doesn't look like a factory owners son from the midlands apart from his style, which is probably quite disrespectful to factory owners sons. He seems too old fashioned and not quite British enough.

Jemima Rooper always plays such awful characters that it's hard to believe she'd be nice in real life and this film is no exception.

The rest of the cast are all very good in their own small cameos as there are no stand out players.

I actually love shoes and having worn a few pair of heels myself over the years, I know that it's not easy to find a pair of size nines, so I can appreciate this story for that.

The soundtrack is fantastic and I would be very interested to see the stage musical as I can imagine that it translates very well.

737.55/1000.