Lee: Kate Winslet outstanding in a mediocre film

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 anything that she is in. 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 bath tub in this private apartment in Munich 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

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. 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.

The trouble is that the film isn't great. That said, the second half was better than the first. The first part wanders through Miller's bohemian life in the early stages of the war. This wasn't very interesting so it could have been watered down considerably to make the film better overall. There was also little to connect this part of Miller's life to her war experiences, other than to introduce some of her friends who later were to be 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 film relays Lee's lifestory from her home in England in the 1970s by a young man we assume to be a journalist. The interactions between the two suggest that Lee put her career before anything else but we know very little of her life after the war or how seeing and photographing its atrocities affected the rest of her life.

Overall I thought the film was underdone. There wasn't enough exploration of Lee's character and her backstory, even though Kate's performance was strong and it was clear that Lee was a complex and troubled person. There cast of peripheral players - her husband, the artistic crowd Lee hung out with pre-war, and even David Scherman - were light-touch, leaving Kate to carry the film as a Lee Miller tour-de-force.

All bar one of the main cast's performances were stellar even if the film itself lacked 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, was horribly miscast as Lee's husband. I understand Kate wanted him for the role and it baffles me as to why. His British accent was woeful and I couldn't detect any chemistry with Kate.

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

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐