Radioactive
amazonAfter her work on both animated and foreign language films, Marjane Satrapi looked to launch her first major live-action awards contender at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival with Radioactive. Following in suit with many other biopics that have gained critical and awards successes, Radioactive attempts to capture the life of Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike) in an honest and captivating manner that would properly pay tribute to the figure without erasing the trials and conflicts within her life. Sadly, for Radioactive instead of creating a gripping drama that properly captured the hearts of audiences the film falls apart becoming a painfully average work that is hard to sit through due to its relentless mediocrity.
Much of Radioactive’s depth and attempts at emotional depth lies in the conflicts between Curie and her eventual husband Pierre (Sam Riley). Curie constantly struggles with her perception of fame and attention for her work. As a woman in the scientific community at this time, Curie had plenty of hurdles to jump through to even get her work seen much less appreciated. Simply because of her sex Curie was refused opportunities and the idea of her having to watch her achievements be celebrated as Pierre's could have really struck a chord with audiences in the same vein as films such as 2018's The Wife. Instead of actually getting to the root of the issue and exploring the situation in an engaging matter even if it has been done before, the film dances around the conversation for much of its runtime with dialogue which lacks the impact and profoundness needed to really hit home. Where the dialogue isn't cringy or badly written per se, it falls incredibly flat and causes the film to drag even for a 110-minute runtime.
The same general lack of noteworthiness also can be seen in the performances. Like the screenplay, it is hard to say that the likes of Rosamund Pike, Sam Riley, or Anya Taylor-Joy give bad performances but rather are instantly forgettable. On paper, this is a fantastic cast but just like the rest of the film, there seems to be a void of any drive or inspiration for greatness. Radioactive largely is a film that wanders in and out of the audience's minds without leaving either a positive or negative impact which is potentially the worst impact a film could leave. Despite none of these individual pieces really being outright horrible, the viewing experience of the film due to this blandness absolutely is. With nothing to grab one's attention, the runtime feels endless which will no doubt lead to many looking at their phones with surprise for how slow the clock seems to be moving.
The one area where it feels like the film truly falls apart and is actively bad is the visuals. The film attempts to give itself a unique visual style by lowering the sharpness of backgrounds and scenes allowing various light sources and colors to blend with each other. Where this does feel unique, it also is apparent why this technique isn't used more often. The movie not only feels lower quality because of this style, but it is distracting and seemingly pointless. It adds no positives and rather only cements the film's standing as being an all-around mess.
Where Radioactive might not be the most toxic film of the year so far, it certainly is up there as one of the hardest films to sit through. With nearly no potency or inspiration, the movie goes through the motions of being a film deserving of an awards push without doing anything of value to deserve to be in that conversation.
