Lee (15)

In 1977, 70-year-old American photographer Lee Miller sits across from an interviewer in her East Sussex home to reminisce about her extraordinary career. With the support of British Vogue's editor Audrey Withers, Lee heads to the front line to document the Second World War but she meets fierce resistance from military command. Colonel Spencer eventually relents and Lee glimpses the conflict through a lens in the company of Life magazine's correspondent David Scherman.

LondonNet Film Review

Lee (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Born and raised in Poughkeepsie, New York, Elizabeth “Lee” Miller was one of the defining photographers of the Second World War but her devastating images of the conflict were largely lost in time until after her death from cancer in 1977. The dramatically uneven feature directorial debut of award-winning American cinematographer Ellen Kuras addresses the oversight, focusing on a 10-year period when Miller traded life as a fashion model to become war correspondent for Vogue magazine. “I’d rather take a picture than be one,” explains Miller, portrayed with gusto over almost 40 years by Kate Winslet…

The Oscar winner is formidable, most powerfully when Miller walks through a concentration camp and the anguish etched into her face conveys the stomach-churning horror of everything she sees (and Kuras conceals off screen). Compelling background detail, like Miller honing her craft with the artist Man Ray in Paris, is omitted even as expository dialogue, and the script’s episodic structure often feels like a whistlestop tour of memorable photographs from the archive. Andy Samberg enjoys a dramatic role as the photographer who teamed up with Miller in the heart of darkness and Andrea Riseborough savours fleeting moments as the influential magazine editor who championed Miller at a time when a woman’s place certainly wasn’t on the front line.

In 1977, 70-year-old American photographer Lee Miller (Winslet) sits across from an interviewer (Josh O’Connor) in her East Sussex home to reminisce about her extraordinary career. She recalls idyllic days before Hitler’s rise to power with friends Solange d’Ayen (Marion Cotillard), Paul Eluard (Vincent Colombe) and wife Nusch (Noemie Merlant). An erotically-charged courtship with painter and poet Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), who would become her husband in 1947, is interrupted by Hitler’s ascent.

With the support of British Vogue’s editor Audrey Withers (Riseborough), Lee heads to the front line to document the conflict but she meets fierce resistance from military command. Colonel Spencer (James Murray) eventually relents and Lee glimpses the Second World War through a lens in the company of Life magazine’s correspondent David Scherman (Samberg), including sickening images from inside Dachau. “Even when I wanted to look away, I knew I couldn’t,” she sombrely intones.

Adapted from Antony Penrose’s biography of his mother, Lee is a staunchly conventional biopic that scratches the surface of Miller’s contribution to wartime photojournalism. Winslet is fearless, shedding inhibitions to capture the exuberance and steely resolve of a trailblazer, who by her own admission was always “the last to leave the party”. Kuras’s party is a thoughtful celebration of Miller that lacks those finer, messier details that would help us to connect on a deeper and profound level beyond glowing admiration.

– Jo Planter