Kate Winslet is pioneering war journalist Lee Miller, who famously got photographed sitting in Hitler’s bath after the Allies took Berlin (look it up), in this new biopic.
How to watch Lee in New Zealand
Lee is screening exclusively in New Zealand cinemas right now.
What is Lee about?
If the bathtub thing wasn’t enough, Elizabeth “Lee” Miller was a model since childhood who at one point was the muse for surrealist icon Man Ray. Then she became not just a photographer, but a war correspondent, getting into the shit in WWII Europe, where her keen eye and fearlessness saw her capture some of the most searing images of the entire war. She was also one of the first non-combatants to see the death camps at Buchenwald and Dachau, so brace yourself for that.
Adapted from Antony Penrose’s 1985 biography The Lives of Lee Miller by screenwriters Liz Hannah, John Collee, and Marion Hume, this is the directorial debut of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind cinematographer Ellen Kuras. So it’ll certainly look good.
The cast of Lee
In addition to Kate Winslet as Lee Miller, we’ve got Marion Cotillard as French Vogue editor Solange d’Ayen; Andrea Riseborough as British Vogue editor Dame Audrey Withers; Andy Samberg in a rare dramatic turn as fellow combat photographer David Scherman; Noémie Merlant as model and artist Nusch Éluard; Josh O’Connor as Antony Penrose (Miller’s son, by the way); and Alexander Skarsgård as Roland Penrose.
Lee trailer
Why we’re excited about Lee
Oh, c’mon now. Kate Winslet as a steely dame trudging through the horrors of World War II, dodging shrapnel and battling sexism to carve out a place in history and bring the truth home to the masses? We are there. And Winslet moved heaven and earth to make this one, too. At one point over the film’s protracted eight year development and production, she paid the cast and crew’s salaries out of her pocket for a couple of weeks. We gotta see if it was worth it.
