Lee (15) |Close-Up Film Review

The story of the renowned American war photographer and journalist Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller has finally and finely been made in the UK with Kate Winslet starring as Lee. It is also Winslet who has primarily been moving the film forward over eight years. 

We first meet Lee in rural France, enjoying a picnic with her very modern (of the time) friends just before the outbreak of war. Bravely the actress – approaching her 50th year- is not afraid to show her bosom. She falls deeply in love with Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard) and goes with him to London where they are soon caught up in the devastation caused by World War II.

A former model, now a photographer, Lee takes pictures in London. But she is very keen to go to the frontline abroad and report at first hand on what she sees as the ‘real war.’ Through her American citizenship, she is able, alongside her American colleague, David E Scherman (Andy Samberg) to actually be part of the fighting in France. She takes many photographs in the fighting zone which are sent to her editor, Audrey Withers (Andrea Risborough) at Vogue magazine.

As a 70-year-old, she tells her story to a young man (Josh O’Connor), who is interviewing her. She shows him pictures that she has taken during the war and famously early pictures of the liberation of the concentration camps, Buchnwald and Dachau. We see the photographs, many of which became famous through Vogue as well as Life magazine. These are real pictures lent to the film makers by Lee’s son, Antony Penrose who made himself available as a resource.

Being a woman working in a predominantly man’s world – especially in a war environment – had many disadvantages for Lee but there were some positives where the female eye was able to see things that were perhaps missed by her male colleagues. 

Marion Cotillard gives a moving performance as the French editor Solange D’Aven. In fact, all the actors give sensitive and unshowy performances. Winslet is excellent as Lee – she conveys her vulnerability in her personal life as well as toughness in facing male adversaries and the roughness of working in very difficult terrain. 

Not over exciting, but the biopic has an impressive cast who bring the audience into the world of a famous photo-journalist.  It is certainly worth a look.