Lee: Kate Winslet outstanding in a mediocre film

A little bit of background📃

I waited a whole year to see Lee after seeing the preview for the film at the end of 2023. Kate Winslet is my favourite actor and I would run to the cinema to see any of her films. I understand that Lee was a passion project for her. Kate was the drawcard but I was also interested in the subject of the film - model-turned-photographer, Lee Miller - who was a trailblazing war photographer. Lee features in the infamous shot of herself in Hitler's bathtub in this private apartment in Munich in 1945, just after his death was announced.

Lee | Released in Australia October 2024 | Viewed November 2024 | Directed by Ellen Kuras | Main cast: Kate Winslet, Andy Samberg, Alexander Skarsgard, Josh O'Connor, and Andrea Riseborough

The story📖

The film recounts Lee's lifestory from her home in England in the 1970s, through an interview with a young man we assume to be a journalist. The viewer is taken through Lee's life pre-war and then her wartime experiences as a photographer. Lee Miller was a pioneer, one of the first to capture images of the concentration camps after liberation, and a fighter for her right to have her pictures shown to the world.

My thoughts on the film💭

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Kate Winslet puts in an epic performance as Lee Miller. I read that she campaigned relentlessly for years to get the film made, receiving constant rejections along the way. I already admired Kate's determination to get the film about Miller made before I even saw it.

The trouble is that the film isn't great. That said, the second half is better than the first. The first part wanders through Miller's bohemian life in the early stages of the war. This isn't very interesting nor does it add much to Miller's characterisation or motivations. It could have been watered down considerably to make the film better overall. There is little to connect this part of Miller's life to her war experiences, other than to introduce some of her friends who later are to become victims of the war.

The second half of the film is where things ramp up. Miller is married to some guy called Roland Penrose who is off doing Important Man Things during the war, leaving Lee to take pictures for British Vogue magazine. I loved the way Miller bulldozed her way into taking part in wartime photography, with the aid of friend and Life magazine photographer, David Scherman. The scenes when Lee and David travel through Germany to record the final days of the war and the Nazi genocide are the most powerful in the film. I wish there had been more of that, and of Lee's struggles as a woman to have her work taken seriously.

The approach the film takes to recount Lee's life through the interview with the journalist is never properly explained. The interactions between Lee and the journalist suggest that Lee put her career before anything else. However, we know very little of her life after the war or how her firsthand experiences of its atrocities affected the rest of her life. Her relationship to the journalist is only revealed at the end of the film.

All bar one of the main cast's performances are stellar even if the film itself lacks depth. I loved Andrea Riseborough as the posh British Vogue editor. I thought Andy Samberg did a bang up job of portraying David Scherman when audiences would be used to seeing him in comedic roles. Alexander Skarsgard, conversely, is horribly miscast as Lee's husband. I understand Kate wanted him for the role and it baffles me as to why. His British accent is woeful and I couldn't detect any chemistry with Kate.

In sum📝

Overall, the film is underdone. There isn't enough exploration of Lee's character and her backstory, even though Kate's performance is strong. It is clear that Lee was a complex and troubled person, but none of this is really explained. The cast of peripheral players - her husband, the artistic crowd Lee hung out with pre-war, and even David Scherman - are light-touch, leaving Kate to carry the film as a Lee Miller tour-de-force.

All that said, the images of the groundbreaking work that Lee did in capturing the horrors of Nazi genocide are stunningly evoked. The film has left a lasting impression on me for that alone. Kate Winslet is mesmerising as Lee, it's just that the film doesn't back up her performance.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐