Lee Miller

The story of former model turned photographer Elizabeth Miller, Lee, who recounts her times as War correspondent for Vogue during the second world war.

The two key elements, Lee's story, and the performance from Kate Winslet. Two things that make this a pretty good movie. It's not one I'd want to watch again in a hurry, as it is a little slow moving in parts, but I'm glad I saw it.

It is a fascinating story, one that is definitely worth some further reading on, Lee was definitely a pioneering figure, going into a world where women were excluded.

It's very well made and nicely directed, the production team did a fine job, it looks very good.

Winslet absolutely nails it, but at times it feels like a one woman show, some of the supporting characters are a little thin and half baked. Andrea Riseborough and Josh O'Connor are both rather good.

It's definitely worth seeing, even if just for Winslet's fine performance.

7/10.

Giving this an 7.5/10 rating

A very and honest as you can get biopic drama of Lee Miller, famous photographer from the 1930's and through out the second world war, showed the world the horrors in the world during her time. Played by, Kate Winslet, this is very much her film, and rightly so. Again, more fine work from an actor who still can pull your attention and works hard at it. Alexander Skarsgård and Andy Samberg are the backup who just as superb in this really near top notch movie.

Ellen Kuras directs us through pretty much a hellish world with touches of light and happiness, which are few, and proper, given the subject matter, and it is eerily lovely looking and tough too. Writers Liz Hannah, Marion Hume and John Collee give us a solid script and story, given how nasty the world was in, as Andrea Riseborough and Marion Cotillard also, pull out the stops in the acting, and look real rough, only Josh O'Connor is the clean person here.

The film could of been a bit more edger and stronger, but then it would of been very graphic and a higher rating, alienating more of he audience, who need to see this film. A good bit of cinema, and with what is out there, it shines and is never, never boring.

Kate Winslet turns in quite an effective performance here as the eponymous photographer who originally arrived in London to be with husband Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) and to work for the formidable Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough) at "Vogue" magazine as a fashion photographer. With the rise of the Nazis seemingly unstoppable throughout continental Europe, Penrose spends more time on the war effort leaving her more and more determined to prove that she is every bit as capable as her male counterparts. Needless to say there's quite a bit of resistance to her participation in combat zones, but thanks to her own perseverance and an alliance with David Scherman (Andy Samberg) she is soon actively involved in wartime photography and by the end is visiting some of the most ghastly sites ever built seeing, at first hand, the truly stomach-churning atrocities left behind by a now defeated war machine that turned large-scale annihilation into an art form. Her story is being relayed from the comfort of her British home in the 1960s to a man whom we assume is just a journalist. Indeed his obvious nervousness and her antipathetic attitude towards him and his task seems to suggest she sees no value in her memories, but as we develop the threads of her life, we begin to sense that something more exists between her and this young man (Josh O'Connor) which quite neatly puts quite a lot of perspective on the choices made by a woman who probably did put career first. Through the characters of Solange (Marion Cotillard) and Nusch (Noémie Merlant) the film also attempts to put a little meat on the bones of the story of those who had to "co-operate" with their new overlords. Some willingly, some less-so and some, well they didn't live to tell. The production and battle scenarios aren't really so effective - maybe just bit too manicured, the script is a little dry and there's maybe just a bit too much of it, but Winslet shows here that she has plenty of capacity to take on a role that it would have been easy to shower with bravado, but instead she brings a more considered charisma to her portrayal of a woman whose bloody-minded courage provided for some of the most significant imagery of the Second World War. Imagery that even now makes your flesh crawl.

I've seen a few review that seem quite dismissive about the scope and importance of Lee. But if you know about the limited freedom of women during this time period you will totally appreciate the audacity and productivity delivered here. Lee was spurned on by personal trauma to do good with her hard fought freedom to operate in a man's world.

Lee has all the period clothing and historical accuracy which is no small feat, while showing the sheer determination it took to achieve access to the final Nazi front of WW2. People back home in the US didn't believe exactly the horrors and certainly not the numbers of the Holocaust. It was the undeniable courageous journey by Lee which brought back the unmistakeable proof and witness of an evil place in history

Knowing that one can't unsee certain such things in person gives one empathy for the cost of doing photo journalism. Many get martyred while doing their work when jailed or taken hostage in authoritarian regimes. But in this case, to have survived seems as permanently affecting a way to finish such an important task.

You have got to admire Kate Winslet for her determination to make a film about Lee Miller, the pioneering photographer who was one of the first to see the nazi death camps and who fought for her right to record history as she saw it, and as a woman. Winslet campaigned for years and was consistently turned down but she did finally achieve her aim, and the resulting film is a pretty good, sometimes very good. Winslet as Lee Miller is excellent, and although initially the film meanders through millers career in the early stages of the war, later, as she gets more involved, it's a much better film, often impressive and insightful and even powerful. Miller is someone worth commemorating, and this is a fine tribute.