Review: 'Radioactive' Makes Bold Choices, but It's Weaker Than It Should Have Been

We need more biopics of women in history. But encapsulating an entire person's complex life on screen often feels diluted. So I appreciate unusual biopics. Based on Lauren Redniss's graphic novel "Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout," "Radioactive" is a biopic of scientist Marie Curie, directed by Marjane Satrapi, who also wrote the autobiographical graphic novel "Persepolis" and co-directed its adaptation.

"Radioactive" straddles a divide between strange and formulaic. The film works best when it embraces surrealism, entering a hallucinatory dreamscape: Stars rushing to the moon, ore spinning mid-air, dancer Loie Fuller's robe changing colors, Marie enveloped in incandescent green light. But sadly, it follows the confines and rigidity of a traditional biopic far too often.

Marie Curie's milestones are covered: Marrying Pierre (Sam Riley), having her daughters, becoming the Sorbonne's first female professor, working on mobile radiography units in WWI, and winning the Nobel Prize - twice! - for discovering polonium and radium, and for their extractions. The film also features possibly lesser-known aspects of her life: Attending s�ances, the way Pierre died, her affair with Paul (Pierre's former student), and sleeping with a vial of radium, which she seductively clutches.

Marie (Rosamund Pike) is a unique m�lange of defiant and blunt, with an awkward timidity at times. She isn't swayed by other people's opinions. Rosamund Pike gives a solid performance as the brilliant, uncompromising scientist. While this is Marie's story, Pierre looms - even after his death. Marie and Pierre have a supportive, collaborative, and egalitarian marriage; unfortunately, the film includes a rom-com style "meet-cute," as they literally bump into each other. I could forgive this if it were how they actually met, but it's not.

When Marie and Pierre announce their monumental discovery of two new elements, I should feel palpable excitement and elation. Yet everything feels muted, subdued, often lacking emotional resonance.

Scenes of Marie researching or giving a lecture are juxtaposed with scenes of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, or a boy in 1950s Cleveland undergoing an innovative cancer treatment, or the burning fire of Chernobyl in 1986. Redniss's book did this as well, contextualizing Marie Curie's work. I appreciate the unique approach to show the ramifications of how her work impacted the world, both constructively and destructively.

Marie says she "suffered... more from lack of resources and funds" than "from being a woman." But that's not actually true. Marie Curie didn't get a teaching job in Poland, she almost wasn't nominated for the Nobel Prize the first time, and she couldn't give a speech in London, all because she was a woman. The film might attempt to make the point that she always found a way to forge her own path, but to pretend she didn't face sexism is patently false. While people are certainly complex and contradictory, the film undermines Marie's independent defiance with a fear of hospitals (which seems to conflict with the real Marie Curie) and lamenting that she "can't do anything" without Pierre. Humanizing figures of history and showcasing vulnerability is intriguing, but making an independent woman needlessly weaker is frustrating.

"Radioactive" boasts some stunning and vivid imagery, solid acting, and bold risks in narrative structure. However, it suffers from a weak script and some confounding narrative choices. I wish this had been a stronger depiction truly reflecting a fascinating and ingenious female scientist.