Rumor has it, gentlemen, that she’ll rip out our eyeballs in the middle of the night if we don’t give her what she wants, so, wot’s wot and let’s do as she says.
Radioactive (2019) is a fictionalized biography of famed scientist Dr. Marie Curie that portrays Dr. Curie as being, in my opinion, mildly autistic. It opens with the Polish immigrant, currently Marie Skłodowska and unmarried, is finding her scientific resources limited, and tries, in her eclectic way, to wangle more of those resources for her work. As she receives rejection by a sexist scientific community, she meets Pierre Curie. He admits to fascination with her work and herself.
We’re off, then, on a whirlwind tour of their romance, their work, and their lives. Nothing is explored particularly deeply, but in a way this is a relief; deep dives sometimes end up drowning the audience. This biography is intent on spanning her life, loves, and challenges from her early career until her premature death from the cancer caused by her Nobel-award winning work on radiation. Whether it’s fighting for her share of the awards, or sleeping with her assistant after the death of her husband, it’s all here.
It can be hard to see into the head of an obsessed person, particularly those obsessed with science, and so it is here. You will not find fainting maidens or crusading lionesses – but you will find one woman ready to ignore anyone who doesn’t stand forth to help her on her quest for knowledge. Her attitude is the one that can be frightening, especially if you see it in a loved one, because it’s the sort of thing that may lead to Pyrrhic victories.
It’s not badly done, it’s just that I didn’t really connect with the story, being a lazy slob and all.
