Ellen Kuras's feature directorial debut Lee puts photojournalist Lee Miller in focus, a woman who refused to be defined as model or muse, but someone who captured some of the most indelible images of WWII. Kate Winslet captures this compelling chapter of Miller's life with grit and gusto.
The film is framed around a conversation between Miller and a journalist (Josh O'Connor) in 1977 as they look back at her life and career in pictures. Miller used to be a model, cover girl and muse (to photographer Man Ray), until the war gave her a purpose.
Jumping back in time to 1938, Miller is in the South of France with her group of friends, where she meets English painter Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård), who becomes her future husband. The couple and their friends are blissfully unaware of the impending war that will change their lives forever.
After the war begins, Miller starts working as a war photographer for British Vogue, under the guidance of editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough). Miller defies gender norms and gets herself to the front line, never taking no for an answer, and teams up with photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg), who becomes her professional partner as they report on the war.
Miller captures the most horrific images at the liberated concentration camps and delivers this to the world. It's impossible to shake that scene from mind as the camera pans in on Miller and Scherman and their expressions of sheer horror and shock as they see the pile of bodies. It's a haunting scene that's captured in one take — a testament to the skill of Kuras, Winslet and Samberg. Kuras also recreates Miller staging a photo where she poses in Hitler's bathtub, one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century, doing so quite memorably.
Kuras's film has visually striking scenes that offer an unfiltered female gaze towards war, and the storytelling device of an interview as a narrative technique simply clicks. Her experience as a cinematographer lends itself to the story and her artistic choices.
For her part, Winslet is a formidable force as Miller, depicting her tenacity to give voice to the voiceless victims, which cemented her name in history. The actress, who also serves as producer on the film, achieves what she set out to do: show the complex and flawed, yet brave side to Lee Miller. Winslet's passion to tell this story that she fought to tell echoes throughout the film.
Miller's tenacity goes hand-in-hand with the trauma she carried with her, and Winslet emotionally anchors a scene in which she details Miller's abuse at a young age. However, this pivotal scene felt misplaced, and could have been baked in seamlessly elsewhere, which could have landed more powerfully.
Lee is flawed at times, and far from an extraordinary biopic. But it brings forward an important story of a woman who wanted to change her own narrative as well as capture the unimaginable. And with a solid performance by Winslet, this one's worth peeking behind the lens.