For a biopic about Marie Curie, one of the most scientific minds of all time, let alone the twentieth century, this is an oddly unengaging and at times needlessly unfocused film. It’s not down to the performances – Rosamund Pike and Sam Riley are really good as Marie and Pierre Curie, but the it feels more like a biopic about radioactivity than of her, at the same time depicting more of her relationship with death than with the science upon which so much of our modern life has become based. Strange too is the meddling with history, no doubt for dramatic effect – I don’t mind changes made for the sake of fictionalised versions of historical characters (this isn’t a documentary after all), but it does affect the impression you get of Curie afterward. She was a pioneer in numerous ways, and her effect on historical events like World War I was profound, but you wouldn’t really know it from Radioactive.

I wasn’t surprised to see the involvement of Working Title, who in the past have produced enjoyable crowd pleasers like Love Actually, About A Boy and Bridget Jones’ Diary. They’ve also been behind much more powerful productions too, like United 93, Green Zone and Frost/Nixon, and Radioactive sits somewhere uncomfortably in the middle, telling an important story, but playing things too safe. The interjections from the future are also baffling storytelling choices. Not only do they interrupt the narrative flow, but they (for the most part) only show radioactivity as a negative, which muddles the tone of what’s ostensibly a biopic. Curie was a groundbreaking woman in any era, but much of that only really comes across in exposition than in the storytelling. As compelling as Pike makes her (and the chemistry between her and Sam Riley is superb), I wasn’t left feeling like I understood her at all, which feels like a gigantic missed opportunity. Marjane Satrapi (of Persepolis fame) is a gifted director, and it’s a disappointment to see so little of her talent shining through here.