Movie Review: Lee *****

It took Kate Winslet seven years to make this female-centric bopic of Lee Miller, a WWII combat photographer for British Vogue magazine. Who was, incidentally, a woman.

I was thrilled to see women everywhere in the credits: director Ellen Kuras, producers, writers, cinematographers. You go girls. You go, audience.

Almost all the reviews mention this real incident from Miller’s life: when she joined the troops in Hitler’s Munich apartment, she had her picture taken soaking, disrespectfully, in his bathtub. It’s a great scene in a great movie, even though you know it is coming.

Many of the handful of men in the movie with speaking roles don’t start out well, although most eventually come around. This film blows the Bechdel Test out of the water.

There is a framing device: Lee being interviewed. The last scene exposes two classic tropes of American film-making, but if I told you, that would be a spoiler. If you’re a regular film goer, prepare not to be surprised.

There are 20 producer credits, of whom five are women, including both the "real" producers from the PGA (Producers Guild of America). One PGA producer, to my surprise, was Winslet. How many guilds does this woman belong to? Two of the three screenwriters are women.