In the post Me Too era, we’ve began to see a lot of strong female-led stories making their way onto the silver screen. Just last week, Emerald Fennell’s scintillating debut Promising Young Woman left me in utter awe as the Glasgow Film Festival surprise film. Sadly, the same can’t be said for Marie Curie biopic Radioactive which also bowed at the same fest.
STUDIOCANAL
You’d be hard-pressed to find a person more deserving of the Hollywood treatment than Marie Curie; she won two Nobel prizes and revolutionised science with her discovery of radium, polonium and, subsequently, radioactivity. Director Marjane Sartrapti, helming a screenplay by Jack Thorne, recounts the story of Curie (Rosamund Pike)’s life. But the focus is mostly veered from her scientific achievements and onto her love-life. Physicist Pierre Curie (Sam Riley) helps Marie in her game-changing discovery, leading to their marriage, the birth of their two children and his sudden death to a horse carriage. The toll of his passing is not light, however, and begins to affect Curie’s work and her family life.
When the film is focused on the science, charting Curie’s great endeavour, Radioactive is in its stride. Sadly, these scenes are a small fraction of the runtime. She was a ferocious mind with such determination to change the world – not letting the naysayers stop her. Being the first woman to ever win a Nobel prize, and then the first person to win two, her scientific journey is one of great inspiration and resilience… So naturally, it’s disappointing when the script skims over all of that. Instead, it chooses to focus on Curie’s life as wife and widow which is its biggest misstep, reducing one of the most independent academic scholars and icons to a co-dependant housewife. Even after Pierre’s passing, the tactless script is still so fixated on showing Curie’s obsession with her late-husband Pierre. The dialogue is cringe-worthy and heavy-handed – with Thorne slapping the audience in the face via metaphorical conversation and expository dialogue that is painfully contrived.
Pike admittedly turns in a watchable performance with the material she’s given, carrying the film through its mawkish direction. But her talents are wasted complaining and crying – again, I cannot understate how out of character this is for one of the most gifted minds science has ever seen. Riley also gives a competent performance and the pair share some good chemistry; sadly they don’t have much to work with. Whilst the tragedy of Curie’s husband being crushed to death by horse carriage or her affair with her other colleague Paul (Aneurin Barnard) are all factors of her life that did stir up a lot of controversy for her career, it shouldn’t feel so cheap. Why is a film vying for such a mind so caught up with her love life? Especially considering the whole first act of the film has Curie repeatedly uttering she won’t let love get in the way of her work. The film has a handful of scenes that work and hint at the potential this could have had if there was some focus and it wasn’t such a soap-opera. But Radioactive gravely misunderstands its leading lady. For a script championing female empowerment, being about an inspired female icon and helmed by a promising female filmmaker, in the Me Too era, you’d expect more.
Radioactive is released in cinemas on 20th March. It was reviewed at GFF 2020.
