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United Kingdom · 2020
Rated PG-13 · 1h 51m
Director Marjane Satrapi
Starring Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley, Aneurin Barnard, Anya Taylor-Joy
Genre Drama, History, Romance
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An engrossing biographical feature, Radioactive tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie and her extraordinary scientific discoveries — through the prism of her marriage to her husband Pierre — and the seismic and transformative effects their discovery of radium had on the 20th century.
The vital story of a singular trailblazer is brought to life with surprising ambition and a committed Rosamund Pike, but such inventive methods confuse the crux of Marie Curie’s intelligence, with alienating storytelling rendering her humanity impenetrable.
As startling as it is to see the beloved scientist hated in her time, that we’re able to see this headstrong legend as a sexual being at all is a credit to how much Pike gradually humanizes her as a woman, while never pleading for our pity.
The Guardian by Charles Bramesco
The admiration for a woman who knew so much about so much clashes with the unspoken assumption that the audience knows absolutely nothing about anything.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
Pike creates an admirable if flawed Marie whose graceful womanhood battles with her fears of being exploited or bypassed for her gender.
As directed by Marjane Satrapi, this discursive biopic struggles whenever it cuts away from her drama to explore the bigger picture — with peculiar flash-forwards to a nuclear future — but Pike helps fuse it together.
Paste Magazine by Joelle Monique
Life, death, science, mysticism, love and hate blend together to reveal depths of an internationally renowned genius. Deeply personal, sometimes tipping into the experimental, Radioactive is like no biographical feature I’ve ever seen.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Kate Taylor
The problem is not so much Satrapi’s theatrical approach to the subject, which veers wildly from the overwrought to the dramatically compelling, as it is Jack Thorne’s abysmal script, full of clunky exposition about isolating elements, curing cancer and refusing sexism.
The Playlist by Robert Daniels
If Radioactive spent more significant time with Curie’s eccentricities . . . we might have arrived at a real character study. Instead, the biopic’s strained narrative bonds dissolve, awash in a series of disconnected events.
Though sometimes disappointingly broad, Radioactive nonetheless possesses a thoughtfulness that gives the film its stubborn spark.
Sadly, Radioactive is as lifeless and inert as a rock, badly let down by a dismal script, and carrying all the half-life of an unfinished fish dinner.
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