Les Palmes de M. Schutz (1997)
Directed by Claude Pinoteau

Film Review

This light-hearted portrayal of the lives of Pierre and Marie Curie was based on a celebrated 1989 stage play written by Jean-Noël Fenwick.  Historically accurate for the most part, the film also conveys, with some realism, the nature of scientific endeavour, although it is far from the conventional “biopic”.   Isabelle Huppert and Charles Berling make an engaging couple as the eminent Curies - their natural on-screen rapport serves the film well, carrying the humour of their situation as well as the serious nature of their working relationship.   There's also another solid performance from Philippe Noiret - even if he does come across a bit like a pantomime villain in some scenes, obsessed with his own personal glory at the expense of real scientific achievement.   Les Palmes de M. Schutz is as much a satire on the painful realities of scientific research (in whatever era) as it is a celebration of the achievement of the Curies.

Film Synopsis

In 1894, Rodolphe Schutz, the director of the physics and chemistry department at the University of Paris, has his heart set on winning the Order of Academic Palms, the prize he believes is rightly his after years of dedicated service to academia.   He had hoped by now that Pierre Curie and Gustave Bémont, two of his most promising scientists, would have made a significant breakthrough to win him the Academic Palms, but so far their research has been pretty disappointing.  To shorten the odds in his favour, Schutz foists on Curie and Bémont a brilliant young Polish student, Marie Sklodowska, who is keen to make her mark in science.  After Bémont has quit the scene to begin a more remunerative career in industry, Pierre and Marie begin their research in the new field of radioactivity.  The couple decide to marry so that Marie can obtain French nationality and continue her work without the threat of expulsion.  Not long after Marie has given birth to a little girl, she and her husband make an astonishing discovery: a mineral known as pitchblende appears to far more radioactive than uranium.  Monsieur Schutz hardly knows what to think as the Curies take delivery of two tonnes of rock and undertake the arduous task of processing it to confirm what they believe could be one of the greatest scientific findings of the century.  If they succeed Schutz is almost certain to be awarded his long overdue accolade.  But if they should fail...