This is a lovely 'based on a true story' film about a man called Charlie Price who has just inherited an ailing shoe factory in Northhampton. A chance meeting with popular drag queen Lola has him change his target market from men to men who dress as women. Following the two protagonists there is the ambitious fiancee, the fresh-faced employee and the bad bloke come good. Predictably, the fiancee gets fed up with Charlie's commitment to the factory, Charlie gets with the employee and the bad bloke comes to accept Lola. Tell me you don't know where this is going.
Okay, so all along it's easy to see where it's heading and, almost to the letter, how it's going to get there. There's the touching 'find thyself' themes with Lola teaching factory floor bad boy Don a lesson in respect and also having a massive effect on Charlie. Charlie's 'evil' fiancee wanting him to sack the workers, sell and redevelop the factory and move to London. She's having an affair with the to-be real estate developer and gets shown the door when Charlie realises how mean she is. Obviously a foil for Charlie, who's modest and kind-hearted.
The best parts are the unexpected laughs, plotted in a very English way among otherwise routine scenes like Lola scrambling to put on her wig for the landlady only for the landlady to waffle on about the rent and then directly ask "Are you a man? Because I want to know whether to leave to toilet seat up." Lola's song and dance routines are also colourfully done, with special mention of the great Milan catwalk scene around a bumbling Charlie and we all love Joel Edgerton so all is redeemed.
At best the film ambles along a well-worn path that many battler UK films have trod before ('The Full Monty' anyone?). A nice way to spend 90 minutes and $8 (I may be poor but it was on special) but nothing daringly different or inspiring or life-affirming here.
**1/2 - woefully predictable but pleasant
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