An eight-year journey to the big screen, Kate Winslet’s passion project is a powerful story told within the restrictions of a by-the-numbers biopic.
Plot: The story of American photographer Lee Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.
Review: Operating from the belief that Kate Winslet cannot deliver a bad performance, I went into Lee expecting the acclaimed actress to be excellent. As a surprise to no one, Winslet is astoundingly good in a passion project she has shepherded for almost a decade. At one point, Winslet financed cast salaries out of her own pocket as well as acted with a brutal back injury sustained during filming. While those trials have added to the aura exuded by Lee Miller over the course of the film, Lee is nevertheless a formulaic biopic kept afloat by a stellar cast that includes Alexander Skarsgard, Andy Samberg, Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, and more. The story still packs an emotional punch with striking historical context from World War II but fails to live up to the exceptional acting provided by Kate Winslet.
Regarded as one of the most important war correspondents of all time, Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) was a fashion model in her late thirties (aka past the prime for a model). Miller was interested in photography as an art form and was exploring working on the other side of the camera lens. Her close friends, including French Vogue fashion editor Solange d’Ayen (Marion Cotillard) and artist Nusch Eluard (Noemie Merlant), encouraged Lee’s passions. Lee soon met Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), a fellow artist, and at the break of World War II, they each followed their paths into the battlefields in different ways. Supported by Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough), the editor of British Vogue, Lee photographed everything from Saint-Malo during the battle of the same name to the streets of Paris after the city was liberated. Along the way, Lee partnered with American photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg), who faced far fewer restrictions as a man during wartime. Through the years and the dangers of the frontlines, Miller and Scherman experienced the horrors of what the Nazis wrought and insisted on chronicling it for the world to see.
Clocking in at two hours, Lee opens in 1977 with the photographer relating her life story to a young man named Antony (Josh O’Connor) and flashes back to 1937 all the way through 1944. In that seven-year time span, Lee went from a self-assured model to a self-assured photographer who experienced every limitation that was forced on women in a professional capacity. Miller is not allowed in places because she is a woman or a civilian, but she never once gives up documenting the truth of the brutal fallout of war. This includes soldiers with grave injuries to survivors of the Holocaust as well as victims whose bodies were left to rot by the retreating German occupiers. Lee does not pull any punches as it delivers some haunting moments, accentuated by some truly remarkable performances from both Kate Winslet and a solid dramatic turn from Andy Samberg. Winslet and Samberg share the most screen time in the film, with Winslet appearing in virtually every scene.
Winslet’s ability to land a cast of talent as strong as this rested on her network of friends and colleagues in the industry. Most of the performances are limited to a handful of scenes each outside of Winslet’s The Regime co-stars Andrea Riseborough and Josh O’Connor, who have strong supporting roles. The challenge with Lee is that everyone else feels thinly written since the story is so centered on the title character. Andy Samberg’s David Scherman was a close friend of Lee’s and was present for many of her major milestones during the war. Still, his character feels requisite to remain historically accurate rather than a significant part of the story. Both Alexander Skarsgard and Marion Cotillard have strong scenes, but their total time on camera clocks in at less than twenty minutes between them. For such an emotionally heavy story, Lee seems determined to make the title character unlikeable by having those around her seem less than vital to her story.
Making her feature directorial debut, Ellen Kuras brings some haunting visuals to Lee that echo her decades of work as a cinematographer. Kuras uses the screenplay from Liz Hannah, John Collee, and Marion Hume based on the book The Lives of Lee Miller to tell the story of an artist and journalist that few today may know about. Often, stories of World War II center on the military or espionage aspects of the era, but Lee embeds the characters in the conflict while not focusing on the battlefields themselves as part of the story. Like many correspondents, Lee is set in the aftermath of battles and shows how the photographer has a duty to preserve the horror so future generations can learn from it. There are a few stirring moments in the film that stand out, including Lee taking a legendary photo bathing in Hitler’s bathtub after he had committed suicide, as well as the framing conversation, which carries a much more important meaning after you finish the film. However, Lee also hits many somewhat cliche moments, such as the character revealing a childhood trauma that motivates her to photograph what she does. By no means do I underplay the power of such trauma, but the film presents it in such a way that feels rote and cliche when it should have been powerful.
From Alexandre Desplat’s beautiful score to the multiple talented actors in the cast, Lee has much more going for it than I expected. Kate Winslet is once again an exemplary actor and proves herself worthy of another Oscar nomination. But Winslet alone cannot save this movie from feeling like it is telling a familiar story we have seen countless times before. If it were not for Kate Winslet, this would be a forgettable dramatization of an important historical figure. Thanks to Winslet, Lee Miller’s story is reaching a wider audience than ever, and I am thankful that she completed her passion project. But, Lee is not as good as it could have been had it spent a bit more time distinguishing itself from every other World War II biopic. Lee is a master-class in acting within a film that needed a stronger vision from a more experienced filmmaker.
