At The Movies: Kate Winslet shines in Lee, an uneven biopic of pioneering war photographer

Lee (NC16)

117 minutes, opens on Jan 16
★★★☆☆

The story: This biopic of Lee Miller opens in 1938, with the American model and photographer (Kate Winslet) living with her lover, artist Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), in London. When Germany invades France, the lives of Miller’s friends, including fashion editor Solange D’Ayen (Marion Cotillard) and artist Nusch Eluard (Noemie Merlant) are in danger. In bombed-out London, Miller shoots morale-boosting images of women in national defence, for British Vogue editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough). But Miller yearns to be a war correspondent, despite rules preventing women from entering combat zones. She eventually finds a way to the front line, partners photojournalist David Scherman (Andy Samberg) and creates images that will earn her a place in history.

From 1938 to 1945, Miller lived a lifetime. She went from hedonist to hero. This biopic makes clear that the two contrasting halves of her life – she is at first a pleasure-seeking bohemian, then becomes a relentless war photojournalist – comes from the same wound in her psyche.

Today, one might say she had complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or use some other psychological term to explain her mood swings and appetites, in particular the trail of emotional rubble she left in her wake for lovers and family members to clear up.

This movie covers her flaws and triumphs, and goes so far as to say that without her inner turmoil, she might not have gone to document some of mankind’s worst atrocities at the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps.

Rather than diminish Miller’s achievements by saying her demons pushed her to greatness, American cinematographer-turned-director Ellen Kuras, making her feature film debut, makes sure to state that Miller had a great eye for composition and storytelling, a skill honed at fashion magazines. Miller’s sense of aesthetics made her photographs uniquely powerful. Kuras’ telling of the story is sensitive, but suffers from pacing issues.

In war-torn Europe, Miller encountered starving and abused women and, often, she was their first source of help. The screenplay is adapted from a 1985 biography written by her son Antony Penrose, and mentions her post-war depressive episodes.

Winslet was born to play Miller, a character similar to other damaged women she has portrayed, such as the title character in the detective series Mare Of Easttown (2021) and former Nazi guard Hanna Schmitz from period drama The Reader (2008), for which she won a Best Actress Oscar.

The British star’s Miller is a compelling blend of vulnerability and toughness, but she can be unlikeable. Viewers might admire her guts or be taken in by the power of her photographs, but they are never asked to pity her.

Hot take: Winslet fully embodies her subject in a haunting biopic that charts how the fearless chronicler of World War II’s darkest horrors was born.

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