Bolan’s Shoes

This is a bitter sweet drama about the lives of a pair of siblings and how a fateful school trip to see their favourite pop idol, the legendary instigator of glam rock Marc Bolan, led to life changing consequences. Bolan’s Shoes will be in UK Cinemas from 15th September.

The story begins on the school bus trip to see the glam rock star with their teacher played by Louis Emerick in his affable Liverpudlian accent, who unashamedly “Gets It On” in the spirit of all things glam rock wearing the signature glitter face paint, whilst air guitaring to T. Rex’s legendary riffs.

The children are larking about having a good time until we see the first signs of trouble as the kid sister (Amelia-Rose Smith) has to intervene to stick up for her brother (Isaac Lancel-Watkinson), planting a headbutt on another kid who has been bullying him. Then later on, after the concert the high spirits get out of hand on the bus again as the brother is egged on by the bullies to set a box of matches alight. The subsequent blaze distracts the bus driver, who veers off the road crashing the bus. Amongst the injured, the bus driver and the sister’s friend are pronounced dead.

From the bus crash we jump some 40 years later and see the sister’s (Leanne Best) love of all thing’s Marc Bolan hasn’t waned. She’s baking a Bolan cake and is planning a trip to London to commemorate the singer’s 75^th birthday, ensuring she remembers to bring along the singer’s glittery platform shoe she was “gifted” all those years ago.

The London trip is to the Marc Bolan memorial at the sight of the car crash where the pop star lost his life and there is a gathering of people to commemorate the occasion including Bubble Man, who we discover is the sister’s brother Jimmy (Timothy Spall), now a reclusive street artist. He suffers a fit in front of his sister which has a traumatic impact on her and her sudden downward spiral culminates at her husband’s (Mark Lewis Jones) afternoon tea reception. Her secret past begins to unravel and she urgently needs to practise her elocution lessons to try to maintain her identity and keep up her appearance amongst a clicky crowd of Welsh vicar’s wives.

She seeks solace by returning to the memorial site visiting her brother’s camper van, which inside is a memorial to both the Bolan crash and the school bus crash. Reunited together after being separated since childhood, Jimmy’s been badly affected by the crash suffering with OCD symptoms and twitchy mannerisms, played with a gentle deftness by Timothy Spall. “I have schizoaffective disorder, easy for me to say, bi-polar schizophrenic, double whammy,” he declares to his sister in a light Scouse accent.   

There’s a strange interlude in the night that disturbs an unconcerned sleeping Jimmy who is forced to entertain a group of midnight revellers in his camper van led by a delightfully obnoxious Mathew Horne, but thankfully his little sis comes to the rescue once again coming head-to-head with another bully of her brother’s. The next day, Jimmy’s guilt about the accident pours out to his sister, which is all the motivation she needs for them to pack up and go on a road trip back home to Liverpool to put the past to rest. But it’s little sis who has some explaining to do of her own.

Despite the lugubrious subject matter of childhood trauma and dealing with mental health issues there is a light heartedness running through the film created by director Ian Puleston-Davis. There’s a shared humour and a shared love of glam rock between the siblings even into their middle ages and with an upbeat soundtrack full of Bolan’s T. Rex hits like “Children of the Revolution”, “Light of Love” and “20^th Century Boy”, it all helps keep the mood from dropping too far below whimsical and nostalgic in spite of the plot’s disturbing psychological twists and turns.