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
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