Bob Marley: One Love, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard), is a well-intentioned and loving crash course on the life, vibe, and message of Bob Marley. While it fails to walk down every corridor of history and controversy that it opens along the way, the film gets the most important things right, and makes sure less familiar audience members see a man who is much more than a cool dorm room poster.
Even if the film doesn’t deliver everything audiences expect from a biopic, the decision to center music and performance above all else feels fitting and will likely help it reach a wider audience. It certainly reached the four gleeful teens at this reviewer’s late night showing who posed for photos with the film standee while the theater staff tried to close up shop.
It is easy to understand why they were so excited.
Kingsley Ben-Adir shines as Bob Marley. He throws himself into Marley’s unique stage presence and physicality with gusto: every hop, contortion, and hair whip is accounted for. Even more importantly, Green and his team are able to capture the magic of notable performances like the 1976 Smile Jamaica concert and several recording sessions from Marley’s landmark album, Exodus. Ben-Adir’s strongest moment is probably the show-stopping recreation of Marley’s performance of “War” at the Smile Jamaica concert, in which he shows off his bullet wounds after surviving an assassination attempt. This scene is magical – largely due to a deep collaboration with Bob Marley’s son, Ziggy Marley, and the rest of the family. Of course, this collaboration also makes the film a bit of a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, this involvement makes the movie authentic. Thanks to the Marleys, as well as their friends and collaborators, viewers get a film that centers many real Jamaican actors, musicians, and crew members. We also get authentic Jamaican English and Jamaican Patois dialogue that both challenges and engages worldwide audiences. All of those influences lead to what this film does so well: authentic performance. While we can certainly applaud Ben-Adir for his musical prep work, he benefits from being surrounded by a host of real working musicians. Every practice and recording session pops and crackles with intensity, and the sequence in which Marley and his team improvise the song “Exodus” on the fly deserves a place amongst great musical moments in film.
On the other hand, this involvement keeps us from getting too far below the surface of the inner turmoil and self-doubt that plagued Marley in the months and years following the assassination attempt that left Marley, his wife, and others staring at their own mortality. It’s also clear that the film oversimplifies Marley’s message and politics. While these are fair criticisms of a biopic, this film is true to Ziggy Marley’s perspective and level of understanding as a young child. This results in some things feeling underdeveloped – like an extramarital affair told in the form of three lingering shots on another woman who gets exactly zero lines of dialogue. That being said, it means something that the Marley family is willing to make these concessions when Bob Marley’s message is so easily and often twisted or appropriated by others.
It also means something that the casting department was able to secure the talented Lashana Lynch. While some of Bob Marley’s nuance remains obscured behind a cool facade, Lynch is able to wring almost all of it out through her powerful performance as his wife, Rita Marley. We can see and feel the weight of the burden she shoulders within the confines of some cultural norms that dissuade women from having an open and honest voice. At the same time, we can see Rita’s belief in Bob’s music and message as she continues to take the stage despite numerous hardships. We can also feel the deep love and connection between Bob and Rita every time the entourage fades away. Rita is not afraid to speak her mind or fight for her own needs, even as the allure of fame and money start to gray her husband’s message. When they are alone together, Bob shifts from effortless cool to raw, honest emotions, including jealousy, pettiness, and anger. At the same time, it’s incredibly moving when Rita is able to pull Bob from the depths of his lowest moment and push him back toward Jamaica for the 1978 One Love Peace Concert.
It’s also worth applauding this film for depicting the Rastafari religion with grace and solemnity when Western film is so accustomed to simply putting it on as a caricature. A key visual motif in the film is a vision in which the young Marley evades a figure through burning crops. This image evokes Marley’s absent white father, but is ultimately revealed to be Haile Selassie I, an icon and/or deity within the Rastafari religion. Selassie isn’t pursuing the young Marley, he is there to save him. This is a powerful symbol of both Marley’s inner conflict and the strength of purpose he finds in culture and religion.
While it might help to educate audiences more fully on the context of Jamaican independence and the Rastafari religious and social movement, and while it might help to confront audiences more directly with the nature of Marley’s infidelities and his shaken belief system in the wake of an assassination attempt, and while some us might like to hear Bob chatting with London punk rockers, none of those things are part of the mission that this film set out to accomplish in the first place. Green and his team could have added another hour or so to the runtime to inspect more dark corridors, but that was never the goal. Instead, the film aims to honor the legacy of an important and beloved figure who embodies a spirit of resistance.
In the end, the film achieves this goal in a digestible hour and three quarters, and it might just offer enough fun and style to inspire younger audiences to dig deeper into the complexities of Bob Marley’s legacy on their own. If nothing else, this film should ensure that a whole new crop of listeners spend some time reflecting on the all-time great tracks from Exodus, by Bob Marley & the Wailers. That’s a noble goal on its own, and the teens this reviewer observed in the lobby after the film almost certainly went home to start diversifying their Bob Marley playlists.
