
Kate Winslet delivers as a woman who learns about the horrors of war.
“Lee” is a war drama based on the life of Lee Miller (1907-1977), the American photographer and photojournalist, who served as a war correspondent for Vogue during World War II. Even though the movie isn’t a classic war drama, it still is levitated by Kate Winslet’s fine performance as the title character. She posses the emotions and uses the American accent with patience, and through her youth and not so golden years, she delivers.
History has a way of repeating itself, and that’s why we’re going to keep getting war movies. There are films we live or love and those we dislike or hate. I liked “Lee” for what it tries to convey, especially told from the perspectives of a woman, and I am against the misogyny that they’re not capable of handling whatever tasks seem risky. It’s another good movie this year to fight against it after “Young Woman and the Sea,” which was about proving that women can swim oceans. In this case, women can get involved with war, too, but they still don’t come out the same person. At least that’s how I’m acknowledging it or trying to.
In this biopic, directed by Ellen Kuras (cinematographer for “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind”), Lee asks her editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough) to send her to Europe to prove to men that women are capable of being in the frontlines. She needs to see all the action and acknowledge what comes out of the war. Maybe her company won’t send women, but maybe they’ll send Americans, and Lee is an American. And so, it works.
Since no women are allowed in the press briefing, she’s able to disguise herself as a man. But Colonel Spencer (James Murray) is able to see through her ruse, but reluctantly sends her on a mission. And she also has her collaborations with David Scherman (Andy Samberg), who treats her like she knows what she’s doing.
And among the characters in her life, there’s her romance with the English poet and artist Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgard), her friendship with the French woman Solange (Marion Cotillard), whom she reunites during the war in such unfortunate circumstances, and her journalist son Antony Penrose (Josh O’Connor), who needs to learn about her life, although they start off acting like they’re strangers in the interview process.
But mostly, through Lee and David’s perspectives, they both see the horrors of war. The Holocaust victims. Jewish people, black people, and women and children of all races have been tortured and abused, and it’s disturbing. If Lee were still alive today, she still would be disgusted by how history repeats itself.
The better movie about war photographers this year is “Civil War,” which represents a dark future in which America has lost its way to violence, and how journalists are risking their lives for the photographs and stories of their careers. The screenplay-written by Liz Hannah (“The Post”), John Collee (“Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”), and Marion Hume (a former Vogue editor-in-chief)-doesn’t distinguish itself from the best war films, as it tends to meander in certain areas, but it does wake us up to show us how Lee Miller acknowledges what has happened in the war and how she came out of it.
I’ve already delivered my praises for Winslet’s performance, but she also has some support from Samberg, Riseborough, and Cotillard. They have their moments of sincerity and complications, and they don’t try too hard to represent their characters. I can’t understand what this war has brought to people, but I can sympathize. And that’s what this movie wants us to do, but as demonstrated through a different set of eyes, which in this case is you know who.

