Karolina Gruszka, Arieh Worthalter, Charles Berling
This sweeping biographical film focuses on the incredible life and exceptional achievements of Marie Curie, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and chemist, during her most turbulent years as she challenged the French academic establishment and social mores with her scientific hypotheses and unconventional love life.
1905: Marie (Karolina Gruszka) and her beloved husband Pierre (Charles Berling) are co-awarded the Nobel for their discovery of radioactivity. After a tragedy she must pursue their work alone, fighting her male peers’ condescension and antagonism to do so. But even then, her efforts may yet be quashed by damaging personal revelations.
It’s interesting that the first film directed solely by Marie Noëlle (previously, she co-directed with her husband Peter Sehr) should also feature a woman going it alone. Her vivid biopic, complete with evocative period detail and a superb performance from Gruszka as the alternately stoic and vulnerable Curie, will give audiences a timely reminder of a female pioneer in both science and society, who spent her life breaking precedent in search of progress.