"Kinky Boots": Drag queen and footwear heir ... yes, it's British

Liberate your inner shoe fetishist: "Kinky Boots" takes footwear beyond fashion and function into the realm of the totemic.

Who says thigh-high red boots are merely traffic-stoppingly audacious? Why can't they be symbols, say, of male courage and individualism?

Such is the position of this pleasantly elevating British film about a London drag queen who salvages his pride while helping save an ailing shoe factory in provincial Northampton. As with "The Full Monty," "Waking Ned Devine" and "Calendar Girls" (the latter made by two of the producers of "Kinky Boots," Nick Barton and Suzanne Mackie), this lightweight U.K. comedy-drama, based on real events, extracts universal dignity from outré behavior.

Joel Edgerton ("Ned Kelly"), who looks like a cross between Conan O'Brien and a young Albert Finney, plays Charlie Price, rabbity son of a shoe manufacturer who dies on the day Charlie moves from home.

Movie review

Showtimes and trailer

"Kinky Boots," with Joel Edgerton, Sarah-Jane Potts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nick Frost. Directed by Julian Jarrold, from a screenplay by Geoff Deane, Tim Firth and Peter Ettedgui. 107 minutes. Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving sexuality, and for language. Egyptian.

Taking the reins of his father's financially distressed factory, Charlie is admonished by plucky Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts) to think outside the (shoe)box in order to save the company. Charlie finds his answer in London after a chance encounter with cross-dressing cabaret singer Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor of "Four Brothers").

Lola (aka Simon) and other drag queens, Charlie notes, are too big to get adequate support from women's shoes and boots. By reconfiguring his footwear production with Lola's design help, Charlie can supply a niche market with sturdier merchandise.

Naturally, a culture clash ensues whenever Lola, looking smashing in a sexy frock, wig and azure pumps, glides past the factory's conservative artisans. One bearish fellow, a local arm-wrestling legend (Nick Frost), initially gives Lola a particularly hard time.

Eventually, everyone who works for Charlie realizes their collective fate is tied to Lola, and they develop pride in their unconventional enterprise.

Gradually, boots and transvestite jokes become window dressing for a more touching story about the bond between Lola/Simon, a disowned son, and Charlie, who didn't want his dad's life but is now determined to keep the legacy going — on his own terms.

Ejiofor, playing Lola as slightly regal, bemused, yet heartbreakingly pained by a lifetime's rejection, and Edgerton, whose Charlie evolves from clueless goof to real manhood, bring emotional authenticity to their characters' sometimes wobbly relationship.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com