Kinky Boots follows in the tradition of films such as The Full Monty and Calendar Girls, that finds rather staid and conventional people cast into desperate circumstances in order to make ends meet. Thus we begin in industrial Northampton where the venerable shoe manufacture Price and Sons is giving a modest send-off to young Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton) who is off to college to study marketing. Despite the expectations of taking over the business in due time, Charlie has never developed an interest or much of an affinity for shoe manufacture, thus his interest in college represents more of an escape from the dreary confines of Northampton and the factory life, both for himself and his overjoyed fiancee, Nicola (Jemima Rooper).

As fortune would have it, Charlie has scarcely unpacked his bags when he receives word that his father has died. Consequently he must return to Northampton and face his destiny. Upon his first look around his father's office he finds documents that indicate that the business is in serious trouble and straight away he is forced to lay off many of his father's loyal employees. He learns that a massive yearly order from a major wholesale distributor has been canceled and yet his father had gone ahead and produced some 500 pair of shoes in hopes that the order would be reinstated, or that he might sell the business and drop the burden on the new owner. Now young Charlie is not only faced with running the family business, but acting as it's reluctant savior.

After a trip to one of his Father's loyal customers only results in unloading a few hundred pair at cost, Charlie stops into a pub for a skin-full and upon stumbling out of the establishment finds the course of his life forever changed. In what he imagines to be a gallant effort to protect a damsel in distress he chases after some drunken toughs giving a black woman a hard time, and before he knows it he's knocked unconscious by a wild swing of the woman's purse. He awakes in her flat and soon enough discovers that the damsel in distress was actually a dandy in his dress. Enter the enormously entertaining force of nature Chiwetel Ejiofor as the large and lovely lounge sensation, Lola.

Lola, is a cross-dressing black man - physically imposing out of drag, but a statuesque Amazon TKO in full costume. She is a feature performer in a cabaret show of sorts that caters to a wild assortment of patrons - Lola lives out his/her dreams on stage before adoring crowds with her signature song from Damn Yankees "What Lola Wants, Lola Gets." Though the two men couldn't be any more different, they recognize in each other a common bond. Both are putting on brave faces for the world to see, but deep down both, in one way or another, each feels like a fraud. Yet destiny is at work as Lola begins to complain of her sore feet.

Kinky Boots, as Adam pointed out to me as we watched, is a classic example of a film that despite it's obvious and predictable plotline, still manages to win you over on the strength of it's performances. Ejiofor gave one of the great performances of the century in Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things, and by accepting the role of Lola took a calculated risk that pays off marvelously and will undoubtedly see his stock rise. Though Edgerton has played high profile roles in the Star Wars Revenge of the Sith and has received several awards in his native Australia, for my money he made his mark as a wannabe concert promoter in The Night We Called It A Day, playing opposite Dennis Hopper as Frank Sinatra. His long blonde-haired party animal in that picture bears little resemblance to his restrained take as a conservative Briton, whom with his studied buttoned-down personae bears an undeniable resemblance to Conan O'Brien.

As Charlie begins to realize that men who dress up as women must force their fat, unfeminine feet into the petite footwear of women, a light blinks on in his sore head. And the two of them brainstorm the tenability of producing racy footwear for this niche market of men who get their jollies dressing up as women. Giving the notion even more credence is the fact that Kinky Boots is quite accurately based on a true story, that made it's way around the news markets in Great Britain - catching the attention of the film-makers responsible for turning another unlikely British story into a hit movie - Calendar Girl.

Though from this point on (including a twist in Price's romantic fortunes) it's pretty plain to see where the film is headed, the story is smartly parsed out with enough heart and sole as well as sweetness and subtlety, that it comes off as an unabashed crowd-pleaser. Nick Frost who put a lot of the funny in Shaun of the Dead, plays a factory worker with a bit of a chip on his shoulder toward his new boss. But in a well-conceived scene Ejiafor is able to sort him out and Frost brings a good bit his comedic stylings to the film, as do many of the character actors that populate the factory including the ever-reliable Linda Bassett and Ewan Hooper.

On as Charlie's own personal Jiminy Cricket is the pixie-esque cutie Sarah-Jane Potts, who doesn't let the King of the Kinky Boot get away with a thing and as a result manages to gain his respect and eventually sort out his sore heart. In order to create the kind of demand for their product that would be sufficient to save the factory and the jobs of those who've spent their adult lives working there, they must put together a snappy line of wears and give them a proper run up the flagpole on the catwalks of Milan. This sequence offers a few dramatic surprises, but ultimately we know we're on our way to a happy ending. Still there is much along the way (including a good bit of soul-searching on the part of both Charlie and Lola) to give the film enough poignant substance to make it more than a mere Discovery channel curiosity. I'm giving it a B and any miserable sod who gives it less needs a kinky boot right up the backside.