Radioactive
Amazon Studios | Release Date (Streaming): July 24, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
16
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
84
Paste MagazineJoelle MoniqueNov 23, 2019
Life, death, science, mysticism, love and hate blend together to reveal depths of an internationally renowned genius. Deeply personal, sometimes tipping into the experimental, Radioactive is like no biographical feature I’ve ever seen. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicShaena MontanariJul 23, 2020
Overall, Radioactive is a fitting tribute that is not entirely glowing (outside of the bottle of radium Curie takes to bed every night), but rather an honest and touching depiction of one of the finest scientists to ever live. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJul 22, 2020
Pike’s own commitment is wonderful to witness. Radioactive is a good movie, a bit more imaginative than most (at several points, the movie takes a quick leap into the future to show the various ways radioactivity has been used, for good and for ill), but Pike makes it something to see, simply by giving it everything. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisJul 29, 2020
Radioactive, a thoughtful, very watchable fictionalized portrait of Marie Curie, tries hard to nudge the halo off its subject. Given her endeavors and accolades — including two Nobel Prizes — this simple, humanizing effort proves tough but also feels necessary. Read full review
70
Rolling StonePeter TraversJul 23, 2020
Never mind the curveballs that Radioactive throws audiences on its defiantly unconventional journey into a defiantly unconventional life. Maria Salomea Skłodowska Curie has been done proud. Read full review
70
TimeStephanie ZacharekJul 22, 2020
A flawed movie with life in its veins is better than a pristine one that’s dead on arrival. Satrapi made her name with the autobiographical comic book Persepolis, which she later adapted into a marvelous animated film. She brings an animator’s touch to Radioactive, an often fanciful-looking picture that nevertheless holds tight to its dignity. Read full review
70
VarietyAmy NicholsonSep 10, 2019
As startling as it is to see the beloved scientist hated in her time, that we’re able to see this headstrong legend as a sexual being at all is a credit to how much Pike gradually humanizes her as a woman, while never pleading for our pity. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah YoungSep 10, 2019
Pike creates an admirable if flawed Marie whose graceful womanhood battles with her fears of being exploited or bypassed for her gender. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattJul 25, 2020
A film whose big ideas strain against the staid outlines of traditional screen storytelling — though budget alone can't be blamed for its odd jumps and tonal twists, from earnest biography to magical realism and back again. Read full review
67
The Film StageJared MobarakJul 21, 2020
[Satrapi] does what she can to give some life to Thorne’s rather staid screenplay, but even that can’t stop the film from risking its audience’s attention with by-the-numbers plotting. Read full review
67
IndieWireEric KohnSep 10, 2019
As directed by Marjane Satrapi, this discursive biopic struggles whenever it cuts away from her drama to explore the bigger picture — with peculiar flash-forwards to a nuclear future — but Pike helps fuse it together. Read full review
63
The Associated PressJake CoyleJul 24, 2020
With some notable exceptions, this is a traditional treatment of an extraordinary life, complete with deathbed scenes that bookend the film and frequent lines, in Jack Thorne’s screenplay, in which Curie single-mindedly speaks of scientific progress less like a person than a grade-school teaching tool. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJul 24, 2020
This is a movie with a deeply split personality, and despite some flashes of creativity from a talented director and cast, neither the straightforward biography nor the flights of creative fancy are particularly resonant. Read full review
63
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenJul 21, 2020
While mostly hewing to unremarkable biopic formula (yes, there’s a slow-clap response to a speech given by the main character), this dramatization of the life of double Nobel-prize winning scientist Marie Curie does manage a few inventive flourishes along the way. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJul 23, 2020
She is intensely, almost palpably, radiant. I call this star power, coupled with the intelligence and verve Ms. Pike always brings to her roles. She’s brilliant in this one, a plausible vision of a singular visionary in the history of science. If the film around her is unstable to the point of screwiness, it is not for lack of ambition. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawJun 15, 2020
The movie partly follows the classic period-biopic template with the story extending in flashback from Marie being wheeled into hospital with her final illness. But the narrative is more unusual and ambitious – with its stylised flashforward sequences showing the consequences of Marie’s discovery, occurring like dream-premonitions. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 10, 2019
Though sometimes disappointingly broad, Radioactive nonetheless possesses a thoughtfulness that gives the film its stubborn spark. Read full review
58
The PlaylistRobert DanielsDec 3, 2019
If Radioactive spent more significant time with Curie’s eccentricities . . . we might have arrived at a real character study. Instead, the biopic’s strained narrative bonds dissolve, awash in a series of disconnected events. Read full review
55
CNNBrian LowryJul 24, 2020
Neither film is especially memorable, which is too bad, squandering Rosamund Pike as Marie Curie and Ethan Hawke, very intense and brooding as Nikola Tesla. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJul 29, 2020
Although it does an adequate job of illustrating the reasons why history remembers Curie, it feels more like a Victorian/Edwardian era soap opera than the chronicle of a scientific pioneer. Read full review
50
TheWrapSteve PondJul 24, 2020
This is a movie that shows the Curies’ work changing the world, but then has Marie say, “I can feel our work … changing the world.” Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comChristy LemireJul 23, 2020
With Radioactive, Satrapi eschews traditional biopic notions in favor of a more daring approach. But the execution is frustratingly inconsistent, with a time-hopping structure that’s more jarring than thrilling. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayJul 22, 2020
Alternately fascinating and disappointing biopic about French scientist Marie ­Curie. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshJul 22, 2020
Despite the talent involved, and the incredible subject matter, the irritating tendency to over-explain to the audience means there’s very little spark to be found in the enervating Radioactive. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrJul 22, 2020
Pike understands the woman she’s playing was a genius and that genius is rarely likable; her performance bristles with charismatic impatience. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineChris BarsantiJul 20, 2020
Marjane Satrapi’s film could have benefited from the tangy humor and cynicism of her graphic novels. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorSep 10, 2019
The problem is not so much Satrapi’s theatrical approach to the subject, which veers wildly from the overwrought to the dramatically compelling, as it is Jack Thorne’s abysmal script, full of clunky exposition about isolating elements, curing cancer and refusing sexism. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJul 22, 2020
The problem with films like Radioactive is that they neither fulfill the biography’s basic duty of elucidating the life and times of the subject nor offer a compelling artistic vision or drama as a substitute for the hard facts. Read full review
40
CineVueTom DugginsMar 26, 2020
Sadly, Radioactive is as lifeless and inert as a rock, badly let down by a dismal script, and carrying all the half-life of an unfinished fish dinner. Read full review
40
EmpireElla KempMar 20, 2020
The vital story of a singular trailblazer is brought to life with surprising ambition and a committed Rosamund Pike, but such inventive methods confuse the crux of Marie Curie’s intelligence, with alienating storytelling rendering her humanity impenetrable. Read full review
20
The GuardianCharles BramescoSep 10, 2019
The admiration for a woman who knew so much about so much clashes with the unspoken assumption that the audience knows absolutely nothing about anything. Read full review
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