Inspirational

So this is the film that Marie Curie, one of the great scientific minds of the past two hundred years, is given. What an absolute shambles. I warn you now, this will be a long review as, having just watched this mendacious tripe I am in full fecund flow. The story of the woman who, along with husband Pierre, discovered radioactivity (though it had been theorised before this) should need little embellishment; we, as the audience, should just admire the intellectual cogs of the great woman whirring on screen. But modern Hollywood isn't about to let this opportunity to pass and quicker than you can say 'Strong Woman' (that odious self-appointed term) we have Curie portrayed as a bolshy, arrogant hot-head who is ready to jump up for women's rights on the merest whim. And thank goodness she is because of course every level of patriarchy is keen to kick her back into the pit where she belongs. In Curie's own letters, she stated that her biggest obstacle was not misogyny (though that undoubtedly existed) but the lack of scientific funding in general. That doesn't quite sock it to patriarchy the way it should though and so Marie Curie is used as a tiresome feminist trope fighting 'the system'. There are moments when some actual science creeps in somehow and these moments are interesting. Yet it's never long before there is a moment to highlight the oppression she faced from just about everything bar the kitchen sink (even then it was probably eyeing her up and saying 'You belong in the kitchen, my dear').
Tub-thumping moments are created to beat this into our heads and this is the problem with this film and many others today. Instead of telling the story as it was, there is a need to exercise 'poetic license' throughout. And this is done in that grotesque way that feigns benevolence and education; they're not changing it for some empty proto-feminist polemic, they're doing it to make the world a happy place! This is not only viciously dishonest and dangerous (as many will accept it as verified history without questioning it), but also massively insulting to women like Marie Curie. Are her achievements so unimportant that they can only be appreciated by transfixing it against an ongoing fight against patriarchy? Either the makers think this or value their audience so little that they have to sign-post 'Strong Woman in a Man's World' at every given opportunity. I kept expecting Beyonce's 'Run the World' to start playing with Marie Curie sticking the boot into the gut of someone representing White Privilege.
The travesty doesn't stop there though. Just when Marie Curie's findings can be distilled into nothing more than one woman against a world that is practically febrile with hatred for 'a strong woman' (and by the way, if you have to prefix someone with that term, they almost certainly are not). we get an astonishing flash forward to Hiroshima and Chernobyl! Yes, Marie Curie should have had a good think about nuclear weapons before getting carried away with radiation shouldn't she? But the film wants to have its cake and eat it - Curie is the defiant woman who rebels against everything (even shocking polite society by talking about sex at an open air cafe), but she's also - according to the references - directly responsible for Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Can't wait for the Wright Brothers film where we get footage of 9/11 to show what their expertise would bring to the world.
Let's be honest - this strong woman trope is a hideous piece of reductivist nonsense aimed at those few with useless degrees. It's the domain of people who are paid to pretend or to lip-sync cheesy pop bilge to brainwashed social media cretins. I have two grandmothers (one sadly no more) who have survived forced labour on Nazi farms - shortly after seeing relatives shot - and rise of communism stripping away everything they had. These are strong women, the kind who would be disgusted by the term as it reduces them to nothing more than their circumstance and gender. They went through all kinds of horrors and retained their love, appreciation and humanity the way millions have before and since. They are not paid jesters telling us that their strength comes from the correct opinion at the right time. 'Radioactive' is every bit as corrosive as plopping some polonium in your back pocket, but much less entertaining.

Really amazing

This film does a wonderful job in dealing with the question: how do our actions impact others?

Without ever giving us a conclusive answer leaving the viewer to decide for themselves.
It examines the life of Madam Currie as a daughter, wife, mother and scientist.

Now her early traumatic experiences with losing her mum shaped her into becoming this calculating, unyielding individual who continues to fight for her right to be recognised as a scientist first and foremost.
Who has abandoned asking the question of what if? For searching of a way "to save her mum".
How paralysed she becomes in the face of simply being in the vicinity of a hospital.
Who has neglected her children in occasions due to her research.

I am not saying that she was or wasn't a good mother, but it would be improbable to assume that she could have been a bad mother on many ways if she was so focused on her work. That we will never really know as it would have to answered by her children and people who knew her intimately.

I particularly liked how Pierre was portrayed, a supportive partner and father who despite being a scientist was also someone who asked, unlike Marie, the question of what if? Going to seances etc.
I can see why some people would think unfavourably Marie after watching this, we don't really know what she was like but considering the time she was brought up being a female scientist was extremely hard back then so it wouldn't be too far fetched that she had to learn to put her walls up quickly simply to survive in what was a man's world!

In regards to the jumping timelines, future past and present, keep in mind the question of what impact our actions have on ourselves, others and effectively the world! Of course Madam Currie is not responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb anyone who is even a little bit aware of who she was would know that much! But what these events in the future show us how someone discovering, in this case two new elements, could effect future generations. How they could be used both to help humanity and how they can bring great disasters.

I thought it was a good account of Marie's life while showing the good and the bad outcomes of her discovery. It also demonstrates what the Curries foreshadowed when they discovered radium that some people and in the hands of enemies can be used in a destructive mannor. Really gave a great understanding of how one discovery can lead to so many various other inventions both destructive and healing to mankind.

Radioactive is a worthy movie, carried very well by Rosamund Pike. Her performance is one of the great recent female roles, even if the director, in her first full feature non-cartoon movie, hasn't done a good job. Mainly because it has too many dreams, too many leaps to the future ill-uses of the radioactivity, too many flashy images and too many digressions. Said director wanted to tell a lot and to explain many things - the sensation she leaves to the spectator is of a mess. Also, about the "morals" of the film, the live of Mme Curie and her scientific career, should have sufficed to fill the two hours without having to make her distantly responsible for Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
Otherwise, the early XX Century is well depicted, especially the rigid administration of the university and the gerontocracy's discrimination of women.
Another flaw at the core of this movie is that we do not see Mme Curie's scientific struggle nor her vast intellect and titanic will power. All these are very well documented features of the admirable woman, yet the director seems to be more interested in her love life and in nudist afternoon picnics.
So all and all, an interesting film that should have been based in the mind, not the body, of one of the more remarkable people of the last 100 years.

I'd be amazed if you haven't heard of Marie Curie. In case you haven't: she was a 2 Nobel Prize winner who discovered Radium and Polonium, along with her husband.
This film tells the story about these discoveries from a different perspective. I was glued to the screen watching how Marie clearly didn't care about who liked her or not, as long as she could continue working as a scientist.
The portrayal of how much bias, hardships, obstacles that a woman scientist needed to get through to do what she wanted in the 1900s is unreal. What shocked most - although it probably shouldn't - is that some of the statements and things Marie hears are not dissimilar to what women hear nowadays.

I loved the attention to detail in the lab scenes. I am in awe of Rosamund Pike who beautifully and convincingly portraits Marie Curie, delivering short and often curd answers, showing her decisiveness and steadfastness. The other actors are good as well, but they are more of an additional background helping with showing what Marie was like.

The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is the script, which sometimes feels like it's lacking a bit of a spark.

Still, this film is absolutely worth seeing, and I'd say watch it with your children to show them that they can achieve anything if they only don't care about being liked by everyone around them.

I would ask you to make up your own minds and NOT pay great attention to the more 'Radical' review !

Maria Curie is almost certainly portrayed as a female of resounding resilience, resolute, challeging force of nature.
She carries a vehiment dislike of all things hospital and even the mere proximity's unbearable.
Trauma carried over by her experience of watching her own mother die in one.

The thing I felt you only receive a minor twinkling of is what inspired this sense of conviction in Marie to Excell herself in science at the expense of all else, perhaps further research around this may resolve this.

Pierre is presented as the milder diplomatic and compassionate one who soothes the ambers.
Whether this truly portrays the individual characters involves sound research and NOT as an American reviewers points out the use of 'Wikipedia" ( which can be altered by anyones opinion vs facts).

The scientific research is crude as that was their primary source available at the time.
The historical portrait is real enough and atmospheric enough to engage and imbue the audience with the period and its graphic details of life.

The things which disturbed me most was the vial of radioactive Radium/ Palladium Marie carried with her to bed every night and possibly everyday also. The idea of so much radiation exposure would simply never have occurred to them, although later on during their research there is mention of this through press clippings.

The other scenes I felt most disturbing are on the fields of battle, with devastation landscapes with smouldering trees and one has an embattled solder embedded in the top most canopy of shredded tree trunks.

The directors felt the need to incoroporate a some recent radiation disasters for the viewers to dwell on.
Whether this is to ingratiate the viewers directly linking the disastrous effects of radioactivity or to denigrate the Curies research you decide for yourselves.
There does seem less visual representation of the success of their research opposed to the disastrous ones.

It's a great film well worth watching for sure however just be prepared it's not rose tinted.