Lee (2024) | Film Review

When we first meet Lee Miller, she has thrown caution to the wind and is casually imbibing with friends, reflecting on her new life as a former model. She proclaims she is no longer a muse and is now desperately searching for her next chapter. If you happen to be familiar with either journalism or feminist icons, then you already know that her answer becomes that she rises to establish herself as one of the greatest war photographers in history. Lee is a film dedicated to her ascension.

Lee Miller (Kate Winslet), as captured here, is an enigma who narrates her own story to a curious observer (Josh O’Connor). Flashbacks convey she was sharp, creative, driven, and fiercely independent, Lee Miller was a force to be reckoned with. If you were unfamiliar with her before this film, enough of the cracks are filled in to give you a clear assist as to who she was, and who she became.

As she first placed her eye behind the camera rather in front, after confronting the reality of aging models losing appeal in the early 1900s, Miller also evolved into a brilliant lenswoman. A hired hand for Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief, Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough, superb in a limited role), Lee becomes singularly focused on heading to the front lines at the outset of WWII, placement sworn off for women, but eventually she breaks through these barriers all the way to Hitler’s personal apartment.

Lee’s script (credited to Liz Hannah, Marion Hume, and John Collee) offers a glimpse behind the shutter of Miller’s life, most notably including her romance with Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) and her best friend and sidekick David Scherman (an impressively understated Andy Samberg). We could have used a bit more fleshing out of Lee and her internal reasoning, as the film might leave those unfamiliar with her work a tad confounded. But overall, the brush strokes of the woman and her craft are all here.

Renowned cinematographer Ellen Kuras reunites with her Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind subject Kate Winslet to direct this dive into the psyche and motivations of such a conflicting character. Kuras tackling Lee Miller for her debut as a director is perfectly fitting, as Kuras already has an eye for staging a shot or capturing a moment, as Miller herself had (including an iconic photo situated in Hitler’s bathtub). Kuras trains her camera lovingly on Winslet’s magical ability to convey an entire script through nothing more than the conformity of her facial tics, equal to whatever Miller has in the crosshairs of her lens.

Ellen Kuras is also blessed with a cast led by Kate Winslet as the titular Lee Miller. One of this generation’s greatest actresses, Winslet yet again gives everything to her performance. Any emotion or state Miller finds herself in – flippant, free, determined, devastated, overwhelmed – is handled with such respectful restraint and devotion that Lee Miller is brought vividly to life by Winslet as though Kuras had somehow discovered missing documentary footage. In a storied career, Winslet is still creating memorable portrayals that elevate every aspect of any film or series she takes part in.

When the dust settles and Kuras fully demonstrates the accuracy of recreating Miller’s photographs over the end credits, we are left with a resoundingly compelling docudrama of a photographer who captured some of the most impactful and harrowing images of the worst war on record. Lee Miller was a person of complexity, wit, and courage, and there is no actor better suited to recapture her presence than Kate Winslet.