‘Lee’: Toronto Review

Dir: Ellen Kuras. UK. 2023. 116 mins.

Former fashion model; muse, lover and creative collaborator of the surrealist artist Man Ray; key member of a social circle that included the poet Paul Éluard and the artists Picasso and Jean Cocteau; a successful photographer: Lee Miller had already lived several decades worth of experiences by the time this fascinating biopic trains its lens on her life in the run-up to the Second World War. The first feature film from cinematographer Ellen Kuras is a satisfyingly textured portrait of a remarkable and unusual woman, who had an almost Zelig-like gift for bearing witness to key moments in history.

A satisfyingly textured portrait of a remarkable and unusual woman

Miller (Kate Winslet, who also produced) is good at “drinking, fucking and taking photographs,” and does all of them to excess. But the worldly and rather jaded Miller is now looking for meaning to anchor an uncertain existence. And with Europe in turmoil and the war about to ignite across the continent, photographing the frontline of combat seems to be the most effective way of channeling her skillset and her unusually fearless approach to life. While this is an involving and informative historical drama, it’s also a picture that treads a fairly safe path, particularly when it comes to Alexandre Desplat’s earnest score. Winslet’s outstanding performance, plus an impressive supporting cast should serve as a marketing hook for a film that has, if not breakout potential, then certainly the scope to become a mid-range arthouse success.

We first meet Miller, a liberated bohemian, an intellectual and sexual free spirit, in the South of France (Croatia, Hungary and the UK provide the locations). She’s a lioness of a woman with a voice that sounds like gargled shrapnel and bourbon. She’s an uninhibited consumer of drink and men (in that order), who launches intimidating conversational parries against those who pique her interest. The latest of these is a curator and artist Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), who will go on to become her partner and ultimately her husband. Roland is a key figure in her life but equally, so is Vogue editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough), who commissions Miller as a photographer to capture the conflict of the Second World War, first domestically, then on the ground in France and Germany.

Kuras has previously directed a feature-length documentary (2008’s The Betrayal) and has extensive television credits so it was perhaps only a matter of time before she found a feature film project that captured her imagination. Lee seems to be a perfect fit for her talents: not only is it a portrait of a woman who made a career out of capturing the stories of others through her unflinching lens, but it also reunites Kuras with Winslet, her collaborator on Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, which Kuras shot.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the film looks tremendous, with the sunny possibilities of the early scenes gradually replaced by an oppressively sober colour palette of khaki, beige and gun-smoke grey. And while Miller’s role, as an observer who bears witness to some of the worst atrocities of war, is arguably passive rather than active, her friendship with fellow photographer David E. Scherman (Andy Samberg) adds emotional weight to the story. Most affecting, however, is a framing interview featuring an eager young man in a suit who, in the final act, is revealed to be someone unexpectedly close to Miller’s jagged, tumultuous life.