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Kinky Boots (2005)

Director: Julian Jarrold

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From Time Out London

The latest would-be crowd-pleasing Britcom takes its cue from a true story, and offers befuddled Joel Edgerton, who’s just inherited a traditional Northampton shoe factory heading for bankruptcy, unlikely salvation in the beefy form of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s drag artiste – who reveals a hitherto unsuspected niche for sturdy high heels suitable for chaps in dresses. Thus we get triumph-of-the-underdog with a sequinned twist, except that the movie makes a real meal of getting to its all-singing, all-dancing finale at a Milan fashion show. There’s a dreary half-hour of contrived complications in the middle, for instance, while the chemistry between the two male leads is policed to rule out any suggestion of mutual attraction – instead, Edgerton faces a clumsily loaded choice between his duck-faced nominal fiancée and Sarah-Jane Potts’ perky salt-of-the-earth employee. Ejiofor, on the other hand, runs through his dance routines with gusto, gets to sing ‘Whatever Lola Wants’, but has no discernible sexuality of his own. Overall, it’s breezy, forgettable fluff, but ‘kinky’? Obviously, the term is relative.

Author: TJ 2005-10-04 12:42:30

Time Out London Issue 1833: October 5-12 2005