Advertisement

Don't let the title fool you. The British comedy "Kinky Boots" is probably the most kinkless film featuring fetish wear ever to strut its stilettoed heels across the silver screen.

This story about a drag queen who helps save a staid shoe factory from bankruptcy is more interested in warming your heart and tickling your funny bone than it is in tweaking your libido or digging deep into the more profound issues of gender identity.

Joel Edgerton ("Star Wars" episodes II and III) plays Charlie Price, a man forced to run the family shoe factory. But as he steps into the job he never wanted, he discovers that conservative men's footwear isn't selling like it used to. To save the business and his employees' jobs, he must find a way to shake things up.

And that's where Lola fits in or, rather, stands out. Played by Chiwetel Ejiofor ("Dirty Pretty Things," "Melinda and Melinda," "Serenity"), he/she is the flamboyant star of a drag show who inspires Charlie to create shoes for a different kind of man -- sturdy-yet-sexy boots capable of supporting boys who dress like girls as they sing, dance and dazzle the night away.

Feeling like the love child of "The Full Monty" and "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar," "Kinky Boots" clips through a rather predictable list of plot points. Charlie's love story, for instance, walks a path so well trodden that most viewers will know within the first 10 minutes precisely how it's going to end.

And though Lola is the most intriguing character in the bunch, she isn't given much room to develop. The writers and director choose instead to play her story mostly surface-level safe. Sure, we see her fend off some thuggish bigots and sniffle over her heartbreaking past, but the thorny question raised -- What does it mean to be a man? -- gets a breezy and all-too-easy answer.

But before we go asking grand things from this movie, let's remember that this is a story brought to us by the producers and writer of "Calendar Girls." Like that film, this one strives to be nothing more than a sweetheart of a little comedy with a big human heart and some genuinely funny moments.