Marie (Karolina Gruszka, INLAND EMPIRE), her husband Pierre Curie (Charles Berling, SUMMER HOURS), and colleague Henri Becquerel have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. The Curies have declined to go to Stockholm for the ceremony because Pierre is unwell, with the doctor who is also treating Marie's aged father-in-law Eugene (André Wilms, LE HAVRE) suspecting either anemia or influenza. When Pierre is killed in a carriage accident, Marie has doubts that she can continue without him and it is only with the encouragement of colleague Andre (Malik Zidi, WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS) that she pushes to take over her husband's teaching position at the Sorbonne and continue developing radium in treating cancer rather than train a successor for her husband as planned. Through a cooperative school that she has formed in her home lab for the children, she becomes closer to colleage and family friend Paul Langevin (Arieh Worthalter, THE TAKE) and they start an illicit affair. Having started teaching at the Sorbonne to rapt audiences, Marie then attempts to join the Academy of Sciences, but faces not only prejudice as a naturalized Polish citizen but also being judged as "cold as ice and fuckable" by her male colleagues who have thus far not allowed a woman to join. When Paul's wife Jeanne (Marie Denarnaud, UNE VIE) discovers his infidelity, she presses her husand to take a high-paying job in industry, threatens Marie, and then takes her suspicions to science journalist Gustave Tery (TATORT's Samuel Finzi). The ensuing scandal - including a dual between Langevin and Tery - gives the Academy of Sciences a reason to reject her and also threatens her second Nobel Prize win earned by herself. Although the official English title MARIE CURIE: THE COURAGE OF KNOWLEDGE makes it sound like a documentary or a biopic, MARIE CURIE AND THE BLUE LIGHT focuses on the challenges and prejudices Curie faces after the death of her husband. For a film which highlights male characters devaluing her as a woman - even Albert Einstein (Piotr Glowacki) who admires her for her mind is equally taken with her beauty - it spends a lot of time on her love life; however, that soon pays off with her retort to the Nobel Foundation representative that it is only because she is a woman that her private life has any bearing on their awarding her the prize, and that there would be no scientist left to give it to if they judged male scientists for their affairs; but it does not necessarily provide the most compelling drama (espcially with writer/director Marie Noëlle's grab bag of visual techniques). In spite of a few moments in which Curie addresses the importance of remaining vigilant that the discoveries of herself and her colleagues not be used for destructive purposes, the film is pretty vague on scientific detail and the bookending with the two Nobel Prizes ends the film rather abruptly in dramatic terms. As a biographical picture about a turn-of-the-century intellectual woman, the film compares poorly to the rather straightforward LOU ANDREAS-SALOME: THE AUDACITY TO BE FREE.