'Lee' Is a Formulaic Biopic With Kate Winslet in Fine Form
The acclaimed war journalist's life is laid bare in a film that is far too basic
Biopics are a tried and true formula. They’re so time tested, in fact, that there’s an equally well-loved subgenre of spoof movies strictly about them. That’s the overarching feeling watching director Ellen Kuras’ Lee, a by-the-numbers exploration of war photographer Lee Miller. Kuras and star Kate Winslet certainly grasp the import of Miller’s war work and her femininity, but the entire affair ends up being covered in quips, futuristic allusions, and other elements cobbled from the Biopic 101 handbook.
We meet an older Lee Miller (Winslet) in a scene familiar to biopic lovers: being interviewed by an unnamed young man (Josh O’Connor) about her life and career. The two engage in a battle of wills, with the man telling Lee “Don’t you want the world to know about you?” as a crotchety Lee responds with a quip for everything. “All interviews are interrogations,” she says and from there we transition quickly to 1938 France.
The various beats in Lee are familiar yet highly interesting and entertaining. There’s a reason a formula works so well, sometimes. As Lee herself says, “I was good at drinking, having sex and taking picture,” and throughout the near two-hour runtime of Lee we see all of that bear fruit to paint a portrait of a woman who was complicated, though far from as messy as she’d like us to believe (or at least the screenwriters are willing to show). The film has the support of Lee’s son, Anthony Penrose, so it’s understandable that there’s a glossy Hollywood sheen, literally and figuratively, to the movie.
We don’t see much of Lee’s world of hedonism, with only stray references to her past with the acclaimed Man Ray. Lee lives in France with various friends who appear to spend their days lounging, topless, in a scene that looks cut from a French perfume ad. Cinematographer Pawel Edelman is fantastic with the camera work, whether that be the languid shores of the French Riviera or the dark, desolate world of WWII.
The arrival of the war is also when Lee starts to find success, becoming the go-to war photographer for British Vogue. Lee being a woman leads to challenges but they come off as easily overcome, particularly with the help of her friend and fellow photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg). There are various strings screenwriters Liz Hannah, Marion Hume and John Collee want to pull but they never feel as hard-hitting as they should be. Lee gets turned away from attending a military debrief and just gathers up her hair to sit down in the meeting, only to get yelled at later. For narrative convenience the men just seem to start accepting her as a part of their lives.
What’s more fascinating are the moments where Lee captures the lives of those ignored in the war, like female pilots and war widows and orphans left in the rubble. These moments are fleeting but hit harder because of how Lee is forced to adapt her coverage and, yet, the impact it yields comes off as more haunting. The use of Lee’s pictures also does a lot of heavy lifting to show audiences why she is so respected today, though the film is never able to really transcend why stories about photogs are so hard to tell. The audience is already watching a series of moving images yet has to look at replicas of another person’s work within the story. The portrait within a portrait mentality never clicks 100% nor does it with Lee. The amount of people that ask Lee to take their photo feels jarring considering the ubiquity of disposable photos today.
The arrival of the war does lead to a lot of hindsight storytelling, from Lee and her friends joking that “surely they can see who he is” when talking about Hitler to “we woke up one morning and Hitler was the head of Europe.” Moments like these never coalesce in movies, and it’s doubtful Lee could have found any organic way to circumvent that, but it’s eye-rolling nonetheless.
Kate Winslet is the GOAT and it’s no surprise she carries Lee on her back, both in terms of the story and as a character. Under her guidance Lee is tough, callous, funny, sweet, and messy. She’s presented as the voice of the fallen woman as well as a survivor of sexual assault, with Winslet capable of sitting in total silence and leaving the audience to feel the weight of her grief. It’s these moments that fill in some necessary blanks, such as Lee’s growing ambivalence to her work as a war photographer; we watch Winslet give a slight grimace while taking a photo of a child in a concentration camp.
The rest of the cast also does solid work but this is Winslet’s movie, from beginning to end. Andy Samberg gives a lovely dramatic turn, the level-headed foil to Lee. The movie, thankfully, doesn’t add in a romantic triangle between Lee, David, and Lee’s husband Roland (Alexander Skarsgard), instead presenting Lee and David as having the deepest of platonic loves. Where Lee can only grimace at witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust, David is left to mourn the loss of “my people” which Samberg sells so well. We’ve seen Skarsgard play this type of conflicted husband before and here the movie tries to give some balance to his desire to return to old-fashioned ideals of marriage while being supportive.
The third act reveal at the end is completely bananas, both telegraphed from the word “go” and completely unexpected all at the same time. It’s just a shame the rest of the movie is so basic in its presentation, going crazy here or there might have given it a shot in the arm. Either way, Lee is a good entry point for those who don’t know anything about Lee Miller or her work. Kate Winslet is good, though when is she ever not? This isn’t the great American biopic, but it’s a decent one nonetheless.