Lee is a grim but near-blandly standard biopic about the famed model-turned-war photographer Elizabeth “Lee” Miller. Starring Kate Winslet in the titular role, the film takes viewers through pre- to post-war America and bits of Europe, with Lee as the stern eye to gaze at it all. She rises through the ranks from modeling off-screen to getting positioned at Vogue Magazine, and then allowed to conduct war fieldwork, exhibiting a tough but emotionally tender persona to maintain her gait. She explores both her profession and psyche as she captures the horrors left by Adolf Hitler’s brutal regime. With expected devastations of war grossly apparent (war zone-induced ear ringing and trauma, piles of burned bodies, crumbled cities, and more), Lee also experiences discrimination and sexualization from mostly male soldiers and cohorts. Lee is, therefore, not only a biopic about the titular photojournalist but a fair demonstration of women’s struggles’ intensification in wartime; rape, restriction, and being treated as if unintelligent or useless become only more common.

Lee is undoubtedly ambitious, which comes through most robustly in Winslet’s devotion to the role. The real Lee’s life was one of tumultuous violence, whether witnessing or fighting against it. Winslet fills Lee’s fictional counterpart with an unwavering tenacity, even if it’s not absolutely identical. When psychoanalyzing her then-future husband Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) at a pool lunch in the film’s opening flashbacks, Winslet remains tightly guarded in her digs. She remains guarded when they get intimate, going only so far as to demonstrate her motivation for a career change: “I’d rather take a picture than be one.” And that she does, as proven later. With the same guarded compassion and lack of self-caring, train cars of charred remains, entire cities crumbling beyond recognition, and even her military journalist partner David Scherman (Andy Scherman) collapsing from the war’s devastating remains don’t bring her down—though she feels all of it. Winslet’s unbeatable take, these moments where emotions get most forcefully suppressed, and an unexpected conclusion elevate Lee slightly beyond its uncreative writing.

And that’s just it. For a film dotting the life of a critical photojournalist known partially for her photo in Hitler’s bathtub, Lee plays too safe, and there’s too much flat dialogue. Most of the runtime is spent watching Lee talk to people, talk her way into things, or learn about the war’s effects through victims’ stories. Everything feels morose, but not in a suspenseful or dramatic sense. It feels more like characters saying, “Hey, this war sucks, right?” “Totally.” Then, viewers watch Lee take more photos, establishing some viable tension and discomfort, only to get deflated by the next basic interaction. It’s two-dimensional at worst and flatly mundane at best. Lee also certainly takes jabs at evoking women’s rights discussions, often effective when the spoken word isn’t considered. Lee’s knife threatening of a soldier attempting to rape a French girl in ruined but liberated Paris, only for the soldier to laugh before walking off, demonstrates the (unjustly imagined) power difference between men and women; her restrictions from joining mission briefings or info-filled conferences shows these differences’ legal and social applications. But the writing still isn’t there.

Lee is one of those war movies that, though decent thanks to relevant themes and strong performances, can’t muster the weight of its underdone script. There’s much to mull over, but not enough for this to be particularly memorable or outstandingly revealing. For war and biopic fans, Lee’s a thoughtful, if unrefined, time. For others, Kate Winslet is irresistible.

Opens in U.S. theatres Friday 9/27