Unstable Elements

 

“Unstable Elements” 

A Review of Radioactive by Nick Olszyk

 

Streaming Service: Amazon Prime

Year: 2020

MPAA Rating, PG-13

USCCB Rating, A-III

Reel Rating, Two Reels             

 

            The story of Marie Curie was one of favorites as a budding, fifth-grade scientist; I remember reading her ValueTales biography constantly. Thus, I was excited when Amazon Prime announced a new biopic of her starring Rosemund Pike and directed by Marjane Satrapi. While the film is competent enough, it tries desperately to mold Curie’s life to fit modern acceptable narratives. It is far better to let a person tell their own story and be content with the results.

            The film begins as Marie Skłodowska stands before the University of Paris science faculty, all old white men with Snidely Whiplash mustaches, demanding more space for her laboratory work. This scene will be become the thematic center of the entire film. She does not beg or even ask. She demands what she needs. When Marie is inevitably denied, she must find other alternatives. A college and admirer of her work Pierre Curie (Sam Riley) offers a partnership and place in his lab. At first, she is hesitant to accept any help. “I will not be your mistress,” she bluntly tells him mere days after they meet. When it becomes clear that Pierre is more attracted to her mind than her body, she agrees. Over the course of the next decades, the pair become the most famous duo in the scientific community, isolating multiple elements and discovering the fundamentals of all radioactive science. Despite her initial misgivings, Marie falls in love and marries Pierre, only to lose him to a tragic accident not long after. However great her love for science, her love for him was greater still.

            While Curie’s story takes center stage, it is not the only narrative. Interspliced with her life are various flash forwards that look at the results of her work. There are of the benefits of radiation, including the first chemotherapy trials during the late 1950s. There are also the darker corners of atomic science, such as the nuclear weapons and the Chernobyl disaster. It is a potent reminder that one’s life touches so many others, and the world was forever affected by what she and Pierre did in their little lab.

            According to nearly every account, the Curies had a fantastic marriage. For the most part, Satrapi celebrates this. There is a great scene that occurs shortly after their marriage, where Marie and Pierre strip naked and jump into a lake, swimming and basking in the sun like Adam and Eve. Moments that show martial erotic love that is both exciting and holy are rare within 21^st century cinema, which makes it all the more refreshing. Yet, in the #MeToo world, it would be impossible to show a marriage without some semblance of patriarchal oppression, so Satrapi creates one. When Pierre and Marie are awarded the Noble Prize for Physics in 1903, Pierre suggests that he go alone to receive the prize since Marie is pregnant. She agrees. Later, when he returns, Marie accuses him taking credit for her accomplishments in a fiery speech that was featured prominently in the trailer. In reality, the Committee had initially only intended to give the prize to Pierre but included Marie after he protested. Neither Curie attended the ceremony due to their work, and eventually traveled to Sweden together to receive the medal two years later. There’s no doubt that Marie experienced injustice in regard to her sex from the scientific community and society at large. However, by injecting that narrative into her marriage to prove the film’s liberal credentials, it smears the good name of Pierre and demonstrates a tremendous lack of respect towards its subject.

            Another odd perceptive comes from the film’s understanding of religion. Oddly enough for a Polish woman working in France, there is no mention of Catholicism at all. Instead, religion is represented by the Spiritualist movement, where mediums held séances to communicate with the dead. Like alchemy before it, the Spiritualist movement tried to unify scientific theories with the metaphysical realm. One prominent example was Douglas MacDougall, a physician who claimed to prove the soul weighed 21 grams. Marie is rightly skeptical of these practitioners at first, but after the death of her husband, grief compels her to seek them out. Conveniently, the moment she is ready to believe, they cannot give a way for her to communicate with Pierre, and she promptly abandons the search. Sadly, she could have visited the much closer Catholic chapel and learned about the communion of saints. The dead are never gone, and we can have intimacy with them through prayer, both us for them, and them for us. The foolishness of the Spiritualists confirms her atheism, but it is a straw man. When your witness are Madame Cleo and Walter Mercado, of course religion will look silly.

            Radioactive has a great deal going for it. The production design, costumes, and acting are stellar. Yet, it was disappointing how scene after scene Satrapi tried to force a story that was not present. Marie Curie was both a brilliant scientist and a passionate wife whose family would go on to produce five Noble prizes. She deserves a film free of the oppressive constraints of this age.

This article first appeared in Catholic World Report on August 1st, 2020.