Madame Curie

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.