Movie Review: Radioactive

The new movie Radioactive, now streaming online, paints a portrait of Marie Curie. As the 19th century rolled into the 20th, this Polish-born French researcher met and married fellow scientist Pierre Curie. Together, they discovered the elements radium and polonium. Their work, of course, formed the foundation for advances such as the X-ray machine and cancer treatment, as well as paving the way for the atomic bomb.

That’s the stuff of textbooks. But Radioactive also takes us behind the scenes of that story. What we see is a woman whose passionate stubbornness is almost her undoing. Marie cares little for what others think of her. But Pierre quietly helps Marie channel her passion in positive ways. Together, they make a dynamic radioactive duo that will lead to not just one, but two Nobel Prizes for Marie.

Speaking of passion, we see a surprising amount of the physical kind on display here for a PG-13 film, both in Marie’s relationship with Pierre and in an affair she has after Pierre is tragically killed in an accident. Some violent images of World War I get screen time, too, as do the Curies’ deteriorating health due to radiation sickness. For those reasons, we’re giving Radiation a 2.0 out of five for family friendliness.