Review: Rosamund Pike is riveting as Marie Curie in uneven biopic Radioactive

Rosamund Pike stars as Marie Curie in the film Radioactive, now streaming on Amazon Prime.

A resolute young woman in Paris in the 1890s sets the scientific world ablaze with her revolutionary discoveries in Radioactive, a film about the life of Marie Curie, based on the 2010 graphic novel Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout, by Lauren Redniss. Director Marjane Satrapi's film is part earnest biopic, part arthouse film, elevated by a luminous, intense, and riveting performance by Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) as Marie Curie.

(Some spoilers below for those unfamiliar with the life of Marie Curie.)

Satrapi is perhaps best known for her powerful autobiographical memoir, Persepolis, depicting her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in graphic novel form, which she later adapted into an animated film. So it's not surprising that she would admire Redniss' graphic novel about Marie Curie. Still, Satrapi admitted in an interview that she was initially reluctant to take on the project. "I was like, why the hell would you make another script about Marie Curie? There are already four of them," she told WWD. In the end, she became "obsessed" with making the film, which she views as being as much about the aftermath of Marie Curie's discoveries as her life and science.

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