Marie Curie - Elemente des Lebens

The most accurate thing I can say about this movie is that I watched it... then went searching for the real story. This excessive dramatization I am sure does little to present the true story.

Unlike many here I did not mind the reference to Hiroshima and Chernobyl. Although these happened long after Curie died and had no effect on her career, they were reminders of an important fact: science can be used in a beneficial manner, or in a questionable and disastrous manner. These things had nothing to do with Curie herself, but were cautionary references that I found pertinent to the concept that discovery always bears consequence.

As for Curie herself, at the end of this flick I felt I knew no more about her than when I started watching. The story dramatizes her personal life and excessively focuses on personal relationships while leaving out far too much of her science and actual career accomplishments. That is certainly no credit to the production and earns it a "mediocre" 5 stars.

An Amazon Prime original from last year & directed by Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis/Chicken w/Plums). A late life biopic on Marie Curie, played by Rosemund Pike (Oscar nominated for Gone Girl), as she came to Paris to study from Poland, met the man who would become her husband, played by Sam Riley (Control), & how they join forces to discover the elements radium & polonium. Throughout their experiments (which garnered a pair of Nobel prizes) Curie pushed the envelope in a world where men dominated science but through her sheer will & her own health from radiation exposure (the scenes where we see the happy couple crushing piles upon piles of coal rocks kind of made me cringe a bit) she revolutionized her field. Ah alas if only the film could make the same claim as it stumbles between checking off the important deets of her life & using artistic flights of fancy (w/animation) to bring the audience into her realm. Pike is professional & stalwart in her performance but she does also come off as standoffish, only letting those near & dear to her to get close & even then one would say she was far from lovable. Co-starring Anya Taylor-Joy as Pike's oldest daughter.

This attempt to tell the complex story of Marie Curie was nothing more than a directorial vanity piece. Worse yet, its combined focused on her sex life and the terrors-to-come of radiation made it feel as if she was/is solely responsible for millions of deaths from nuclear bombs, disasters and accidents.

I did not like this story line. We needed to see far more about HER life, e.g. the circumstances that brought her to France from Poland, or more insight into her struggles, as a woman, to actually conduct her science.

The film itself was atmospheric but so much of it was wasted on NOT advancing her story.

Sad effort. Just sad.

Marie Curie became more prominent after her death especially around the early years this century, so a film about her life and achievements was a welcome view. There are a few changes in the facts, probably to make this move more dramatic, but perhaps the book from which this film derives, was written like that. The tough days in Marie Curie's life when she arrived in Paris is hardly touched, which undoubtedly lead to her stubborn attitude which is over characterized in this film. In real life she was not such a hard and difficult person.

I was really excited to see this movie as it was supposed to portray one of the most well know woman scientist in the world. However, there was almost nothing about her achievements in this movie. The achivements of her kept almost at the background of her relationships, some pointless characters (dancer etc) and historical events happened in that period of time. While her status as a poor immigrant, all the hard work she have done to be a successful and respected women scientist in a male-led and racist environment, her bravery and humbleness, all the support and donations she made was cast aside and she just represented as a cold and smart woman with a critisizing tone (which looks a bit of sexist portray). I don't know if she was like that as a person however, I think even that was the case, it should have been shown what she has been through and how did she come to that point. I understand that she had a complex and very hard life and it may not be possible to portray all of this in 2 hours but 2 hours about a most influential women in the history should have not be focused on her sex life, unrelated characters and all the drawbacks of her invention.

I think, they should have created a more inspirational movie about her story such as how her curiosity led to these great achivements and acceptance and respect in a male-dominant society to inspire the future of young scientist. Applications and the results of her invention should have been in a separate movie which includes all the scientists whom inventions brought certain costs when they fall into wrong hands.