C

This is certainly a movie Imelda Marcos, with her love of footwear, could love, but others may be less enchanted. “Kinky Boots” is another one those British comedy-dramas that brings together a concern for working-class stiffs threatened with unemployment with an uplifting tale of an outsider who wins acceptance, and even triumphs. The same formula was applied, in very different ways, in both “The Full Monty” and “Billy Elliott” to great success. Here it’s conjoined to a cross-dressing theme, so the result might be called something like “Billy Elliot Queen of the Desert Does the Full Monty” (not a much worse title than the one finally agreed upon).

The set-up, based, as always, on a true story (we’re told), is that an old family shoe factory in the north of England is inherited by young, nebbishy Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton) as the result of the sudden death of his father (Robert Pugh). Though he’d just escaped the place for London with his fiancée Nicola (Jemina Rooper), and is considered by most of the workers to be inept at the trade, Charlie returns as a matter of duty and finds the place in deep financial trouble that his dad had concealed. He’s persuaded by Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts), a young employee who’s clearly a better fit for him for him than the shrewd but uncaring Nicola, that there’s a better way to deal with the situation than laying off people and preparing to sell the place, and a chance meeting in London with a cross-dressing singer who calls himself Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) convinces him that there’s a niche market for flamboyant boots that can support men of larger than female size and weight. He persuades Simon/Lola to come to Northampton and help him design them, and, needless to say, “her” flamboyance causes quite a stir among the employees, particularly the burly male ones. But the designs get completed and realized in time for the big shoe exhibit in Milan, where Lola and the rest of the club act are scheduled to introduce the boots in a big production number until a predictable obstacle arises–a rift between the singer and Charlie, who’s just learned something unsettling about his wedding plans and takes out his venom on Simon/Lola. Want to place bets on whether everyone kisses and makes up and the boots prove a hit?

What’s best about “Kinky Boots” is mostly Ejiofor, who gives shading and credibility to a role that on the surface would seem a walking, crooning cliche. He’s too good for the part, but invests it with a great deal of charm and energy, and the sets he and his cohorts perform to Les Child’s choreography are vigorous as well. The picture also looks fine, with colorful widecreen images courtesy of cinematographer Eigil Bryld.

But elsewhere things aren’t nearly so happy. Edgerton is pretty much a conventionally likable shlub, and the romantic triangle between him, Potts and Rooper carries zero suspense, especially since the former’s devotion and the latter’s shrewishness are evident from their first appearances. The coterie of colorful workers at the factory, meanwhile, might have been selected through a “one from column A, one from column B” method, and although they’re obviously intended to provoke the kind of reaction the supporting players in the old Ealing comedies did, it doesn’t happen.

So “Kinky Boots” winds up as a prefabricated crowd-pleaser with a distinctly by-the-numbers feel, distinguished only by Ejiofor’s canny transvestite turn. Tramp on past the marquee.