Bob Marley: One Love
why the nation teeters on the brink of civil war, and why Marley is necessary, but that’s not clarified, the first indication that this film is about to over-promise and under-deliver.
The pressure is on to bring a calming presence to his unsettled nation, but an assassination attempt on his and Rita’s lives by gunmen in his home rattles him. He performs the concert but jets off to London immediately thereafter, settling in to lie low and write his seminal album, “Exodus.”
It’s at this point that “Bob Marley: One Love” falls prey to the dreaded music biopic cliché trap. There are songwriting sessions with lightbulb moments, uptight record executives and sketchy managers and a wildly successful tour montage with the requisite shot of records flying off the shelf. We watch Marley go from flesh-and-blood human being in Ben-Adir’s embodiment to flattened image, though the film rarely regards this process critically.
Marley’s music has permeated global culture, though whether his message has been preserved is debatable. “One Love” does include several scenes of Marley’s Rastafarian religion and his spiritual guides. These scenes are as authentic as you will get in any Hollywood depiction, and the representation is deeply moving. Yet you wish to spend more time in this culture to understand why Marley was so called to it, what it provided him as a young man searching for meaning and chosen family, and to understand the tenets of Rastafarianism that he hoped to share with the world.
But we’re left adrift in the story with only generic beats providing a life raft. There’s a nagging feeling that the filmmakers should have just let the story breathe, that the man and his music could simply speak for himself, especially with Ben-Adir’s capabilities. Though the actor embodies Marley beautifully, the storytelling ultimately fails to pay tribute to one of the most singular and iconic artists of all time.
Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Running time:
MPA rating: PG-13 for marijuana use and smoking throughout, some violence and brief strong language
Where to watch: In selected theaters nationwide. Check local listings for availability.