The popular term for movies and TV series that provide satisfying escape in predictable fashion is “Comfort Viewing.” No surprises, no stressful experience for the viewer. A tidy, pleasant ride.
We can’t accurately describe the Kate Winslet-starring, prestige project “Lee” as Comfort Viewing, given that it’s the story of Lee Miller, the pioneering photojournalist who captured the liberation of Paris, the Alsace Campaign and the horrors of Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As you can image, there are scenes that elicit shock and outrage, even after all these decades. However, it does make for a Familiar Viewing experience, as virtually every sequence in this impressively mounted and well-photographed docudrama is straight out of the standard-issue biopic playbook.
Based on Anthony Penrose’s book “The Lives of Lee Miller” and directed by the renowned cinematographer Ellen Kuras (“Summer of Sam,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) in her feature debut, “Lee” uses the time-honored framing device of an interview in “present day” interspersed with extended sequences set in the past. In 1977, a young writer (Josh O’Connor) chats with the older Miller (the makeup on the always brilliant Winslet is convincing enough), who has only reluctantly agreed to talk to him.
Cue the flashbacks to the French countryside in the late 1930s, where the fashion model turned photographer Lee Miller joins her bohemian friends for outdoor lunches and sophisticated banter. The group includes Marion Cotillard’s Solange (who will later be seen in a very different context) and Alexander Skarsgård’s Roland, who becomes Lee’s husband as the story moves from sun-dappled France to the stark and cold England of World War II.
By this point, Miller has long made the transition from model to photographer. With the prolific and much-honored composer Alexandre Desplat providing a suitably stirring score, the story follows Miller as she overcomes one obstacle after another to insert herself into the thick of war, as she balances her empathy with her journalistic instincts.
The always excellent Andrea Riseborough is Miller’s supportive editor at British Vogue, while Andy Samberg plays against type and does impressively grounded work as the Life magazine photographer David E. Scherman, who becomes a close friend with Lee as they collaborate on assignments.
Outfitted in fatigues and helmet, sometimes directly in harm’s way, Miller captures indelible images of the war, including wounded American soldiers, corpses of Nazi officers and piles of bodies in concentration camps. Miller remains the professional even in the most precarious and horrific of surroundings, but Winslet expertly and subtly conveys the toll it’s taking on her. This makes it all the more poignant when we return to the interview sequences, and we can see how the war never really left her.
For all of Miller’s historically impactful photographs of the war, the most famous picture associated with her name has her as the subject, not the chronicler. In a scene that would seem like overuse of poetic license were it not true, Scherman takes a photograph of a naked Miller in Adolf Hitler’s bathtub in April of 1945, on what turned out to be the same day Hitler killed himself. It’s an act of defiance, a middle finger extended at Hitler for all time, and it perfectly encapsulates the fearless and unconventional and unique artistry of Lee Miller.