Kinky Boots (2005)

  This is part two of the Bethany Education double feature where we continue our theme of fabulous drag queens magically transforming the lives of sad, white people.  This time we skip over to England and custom shoes.

Charlie (Joel Edgerton) is a fourth-generation factory owner for men's sensible shoes.  Except he'd rather do anything but.  See, Charlie's never felt like he belonged in his dad's company but when his father dies unexpectedly, Charlie tries his best to step in.  (Get it?  It's a shoe joke.  I'm so funny.)  He learns in quick succession that his dad was barely getting by and he's going to have to either lay off a bunch of people with nowhere else to go or drastically change the company by searching for a niche market.  While on his own little pity party, Charlie runs into Lola (Chewitel Ejiofor), a cabaret singer despondent over the fact that women's shoes are not designed to accommodate men.  Eureka.  Charlie's found his niche.  He brings Lola on board as a designer and muse and galvanizes the factory to overcome their prejudices and get these new designs ready for Milan's fashion week.  But can he manage this without tripping over his dick?

This would have probably been a better story if Charlie had ended up with Lola instead of foisting off some lame, heteronormative, HR-pushing relationship between Charlie and his employee, Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts), but we apparently can't have nice things.  By 2006, we had moved beyond "Kill Your Gays" to "They Can Live But Not Have Any Relationship of Their Own and Must Instead Just Be Happy for the Straights."  Also, this is a Miramax release, which means Weinstein.  So we should probably feel lucky it made it to the light of day.

All of that aside, it's still a really fun movie with a lot of heart and the soundtrack is amazing.  It's currently available for rent on Amazon.