''Radioactive'' is a 2019 British

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film written by

Jack Thorne Jack Thorne FRSL (born 6 December 1978) is a British playwright, television writer, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for writing the stage play '' Harry Potter and the Cursed Child'', the films '' Wonder'' and '' Enola Holmes'', ...

, directed by

Marjane Satrapi Marjane Satrapi (; fa, مرجان ساتراپی ; born 22 November 1969) is a French-Iranian graphic novelist, cartoonist, illustrator, film director, and children's book author. Her best-known works include the graphic novel ''Persepolis'' a ...

and starring

Rosamund Pike Rosamund Mary Ellen Pike (born 1979) is a British actress. She began her acting career by appearing in stage productions such as ''Romeo and Juliet'' and ''Gas Light''. After her screen debut in the television film ''A Rather English Marriage'' ...

Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...

. The film is based on the 2010 graphic novel ''Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout'' by the American artist Lauren Redniss. The film premiered as the Closing Night Gala at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was scheduled to be released in theatres in 2020 but its opening was cancelled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. It was released digitally in the United Kingdom on 15 June 2020 by

StudioCanal StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film production and distribution company that owns ...

and released on streaming by

Amazon Studios Amazon Studios is an American television and film producer and distributor that is a subsidiary of Amazon. It specializes in developing television series and distributing and producing films. It was started in late 2010. Content is distributed th ...

on Amazon Prime Video in the United States on 24 July 2020.

Plot

In 1934,

collapses in her laboratory in Paris. As she is rushed to the hospital, she remembers her life. In 1893 she was frequently rejected for funding due to her gender but entered a partnership with

Pierre Curie Pierre Curie ( , ; 15 May 1859 – 19 April 1906) was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity, and radioactivity. In 1903, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, and Henri Becq ...

. After Marie discovered

polonium Polonium is a chemical element with the symbol Po and atomic number 84. Polonium is a chalcogen. A rare and highly radioactive metal with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to selenium and tellurium, though its metallic character ...

and

radium Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rathe ...

, the two fell in love, were married, and had two children. Soon, Marie announces the discovery of radioactivity, revolutionizing physics and chemistry. Radium is soon used in a series of commercial products. Pierre takes Marie to a

séance A séance or seance (; ) is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word ''séance'' comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French ''seoir'', "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, spea ...

where radium is used to attempt to contact the dead, but Marie disapproves of

spiritualism Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and Mind-body dualism, dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (w ...

and the idea of an afterlife after the death of her mother in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. Although Pierre rejects the ''

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

'' for not nominating Marie and insists that the two jointly share their

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

, Marie becomes agitated that he accepted the Prize in Stockholm without her. Soon afterwards Pierre becomes increasingly sick with anemia as a result of his research and is trampled to death by a horse. Although she initially dismisses concerns that her elements are toxic, increasing numbers of people die from serious health conditions after exposure to radium. Depressed, she begins an affair with her colleague

Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (; ; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the ''Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an an ...

. Although she receives Pierre's professorship at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

, the French nationalist press reports the details of her affair with Langevin and she is harassed by xenophobic mobs due to her

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

origins. She returns to the house where she attended the seance and tearfully begs her friend,

Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (born Marie Louise Fuller; January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928), also known as Louie Fuller and Loïe Fuller, was an American actress and dancer who was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques. Career Bor ...

, who was there to try to use radium to contact Pierre. When she is awarded the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

in 1911, she defies the committee's instructions not to travel to Stockholm and is greeted enthusiastically by all the women in attendance. In 1914, when

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

starts, her daughter Irene convinces her to run an X-ray unit on the Western Front in order to determine whether or not amputation is needed for wounded soldiers; they fund the X-ray diagnostic units by selling her gold

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

medals to the government. Irene begins dating Frederic Joliot, but Marie disapproves of their relationship because they have been researching

Induced radioactivity Induced radioactivity, also called artificial radioactivity or man-made radioactivity, is the process of using radiation to make a previously stable material radioactive. The husband and wife team of Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curi ...

, and warns Irene not to see him or research radioactivity any more. Although she refuses to obey her, they go to the Western Front together to run the X-ray machine. Scenes of her life are interwoven with scenes depicting the future impact of her discoveries, including

external beam radiotherapy External beam radiotherapy (EBRT) is the most common form of radiotherapy (radiation therapy). The patient sits or lies on a couch and an external source of ionizing radiation is pointed at a particular part of the body. In contrast to brachyt ...

at a hospital in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

in 1956, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a nuclear bomb test in

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

in 1961, and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. As she dies in 1934, she sees visions of these events before awakening in a hospital room. Pierre arrives and they leave the hospital together. The film concludes by stating that the Curies' mobile unit X-rayed more than a million men during the war "saving countless lives", that their research would be used to create radiotherapy, and that the Joliot-Curies would discover artificial radioactivity (also known as Induced radioactivity) in 1935. The movie ends with a photo showing Marie Curie's attendance at the 1927

Solvay Conference The Solvay Conferences (french: Conseils Solvay) have been devoted to outstanding preeminent open problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point i ...

with many other celebrated physicists such as

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

Cast

Sam Riley Samuel Peter W. Riley (born 8 January 1980) is an English actor and singer.James Mottram: The only people for me are the mad ones. ''Independent on Sunday: The New Review'', 30 January 2011, pp 10–13 He is best known for his performance in t ...

Sian Brooke Sian Brooke (born Sian Elizabeth Phillips; born 1980) is a British actress. Her television work includes '' Cape Wrath'' (2007), '' Sherlock'' (2017), '' Doctor Foster'' (2017), ''Good Omens'' (2019), ''Guilt'' (2019), and '' Trying'' (2020–). ...

as Bronia Sklodowska *

Simon Russell Beale Sir Simon Russell Beale (born 12 January 1961) is an English actor. He is known for his appearances in film, television and theatre, and work on radio, on audiobooks and as a narrator. For his services to drama, he was knighted by Queen Eliza ...

Gabriel Lippmann Jonas Ferdinand Gabriel Lippmann (16 August 1845 – 13 July 1921) was a Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, and Nobel laureate in physics for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference. ...

* Anya Taylor-Joy as Irene Curie ** Ariella Glaser as young Irene Curie **

Indica Watson Indica Elizabeth Watson (born 20 January 2010) is an English actress. She is known for her work in BBC television drama series '' The Missing'' and for playing the young Eurus Holmes in British crime drama '' Sherlock''. Career Watson's first ...

as six-year-old Irene Curie * Cara Bossom as

Ève Curie Ève Denise Curie Labouisse (; December 6, 1904 – October 22, 2007) was a French and American writer, journalist and pianist. Ève Curie was the younger daughter of Marie Skłodowska-Curie and Pierre Curie. Her sister was Irène Joliot-Curie an ...

* Aneurin Barnard as

* Edward Davis as

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French physicist and husband of Irène Joliot-Curie, with whom he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of Induced radioactivity. T ...

Katherine Parkinson Katherine Jane Parkinson (born 9 March 1978) is an English actress. She appeared in Channel 4's '' The IT Crowd'' comedy series as Jen Barber, for which she received a British Comedy Best TV Actress Award in 2009 and 2014, and was nominated twice ...

as Emma Jeanne Desfosses *

Tim Woodward Timothy Oliver Woodward (born 24 April 1953) is an English actor. Tim Woodward was born in Kensington, London, England, the son of actors Edward Woodward and Venetia Barrett. He was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College. He is pr ...

Alexandre Millerand Alexandre Millerand (; – ) was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 20 January to 23 September 1920 and President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924. His participation in Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet at the s ...

* Jonathan Aris as Hetreed * Mirjam Novak as Nurse Francoise * Corey Johnson as Adam Warner * Demetri Goritsas as Dr. Jenkins * Michael Gould as Judge Clark *

Drew Jacoby Drew Jacoby (born September 2, 1984) is an American contemporary ballet dancer. As of 2020, she is a principal dancer of Royal Ballet of Flanders. Early life Jacoby was born in Boise, Idaho in 1984. She trained at the School of American Ballet ...

* Paul Albertson as

Paul Tibbets Paul Warfield Tibbets Jr. (23 February 1915 – 1 November 2007) was a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. He is best known as the aircraft captain who flew the B-29 Superfortress known as the ''Enola Gay'' (named after his moth ...

Production

Development

It was announced in February 2017 that

would direct a biopic on the life of

, with

and

Working Title Films Working Title Films is a British film studio that produces motion pictures and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a division of Comcast. The company was founded by Tim Be ...

serving as producers. An "autumn 2017" production start was initially foreseen. In May 2017, during the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

was cast as Curie.

Filming

In February 2018,

acquired the US distribution rights to the film, with filming beginning in the Hungarian cities of Budapest and

Esztergom Esztergom ( ; german: Gran; la, Solva or ; sk, Ostrihom, known by alternative names) is a city with county rights in northern Hungary, northwest of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom County, on the right bank of the river Dan ...

the same week. The cast was rounded out by

, Anya Taylor-Joy, Aneurin Barnard and

a few days later.

Release

''Radioactive'' premiered as the Closing Night Gala at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

on 14 September 2019. To celebrate International Women's Day, the film's UK premiere took place at the

Curzon Mayfair Cinema The Curzon Mayfair Cinema is a Grade II listed building at 37–38 Curzon Street, London W1, built in 1963–66 by H. G. Hammond for Sir John Burnet, Tait and Partners, architects. Historic England have described it as "the finest surviving cin ...

on 8 March 2020, ahead of its intended 20 March theatrical release, which was cancelled due to the

. StudioCanal eventually released the film in the United Kingdom on digital platforms on 15 June 2020 and through

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

on 6 July, followed by a DVD release on 27 July. In the United States, where the film was originally set to be released theatrically on 24 April 2020 by

, it was released straight to Amazon Prime Video on 24 July 2020.

Reception

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "''Radioactive''s flawed script and counterproductive storytelling choices are offset by Rosamund Pike's central performance in a sincere tribute to a brilliant scientific mind." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Deborah Young of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'' praised Pike's performance, the pacing and the treatment of the subject. ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' gave it two stars and criticised the "on-the-nose writing that sucks the air out of every scene, as characters ceremoniously announce the film's themes and their personal motivations." Charles Bramesco of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' panned the film as "by-the-numbers", criticising the script and direction, and gave it one star out of five. Kate Taylor of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' concluded that "the viewer may decide arie wouldrather read a comic book."

Controversy

Although the film is actually based on a 2010 graphic novel, it is marketed as a "biopic" on Marie Curie. Geraldine McGinty of

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

severely criticised the film not just for altering many historical events for dramatic effect, but for misrepresenting her character and that of her husband, e.g. by saying that she stayed home rather than attending the 1905 Nobel ceremony with Pierre, where he belatedly delivered the lecture for their 1903 prize. McGinty said that its misleading analogies, misrepresentation of principal characters, and inappropriate nudity and violence, all make it unsuitable as an educational or biographical source.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Radioactive 2019 films 2019 biographical drama films Biographical films about scientists British biographical drama films British nonlinear narrative films Cultural depictions of Pierre Curie Films about the afterlife Films about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Films about chemistry Films about the Chernobyl disaster Films about Marie Curie Films about Nobel laureates Films about physics Films about sexism Films directed by Marjane Satrapi Films not released in theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic Films produced by Eric Fellner Films produced by Tim Bevan Films set in the 20th century Films set in 1893 Films set in 1903 Films set in 1914 Films set in 1934 Films set in 1945 Films set in 1956 Films set in 1961 Films set in 1985 Films set in Cleveland Films set in Chernobyl (city) Films set in Hiroshima Films set in Nevada Films set in Paris Films set in Poland Films set in Stockholm Films shot in Budapest Films with screenplays by Jack Thorne Western Front (World War I) films StudioCanal films Working Title Films films Amazon Prime Video original films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films