If you were to ask any person who is the first person they think of when it comes to reggae music, it’s almost guaranteed the first person most will name is Bob Marley. Despite passing away at the young age of 36 back in 1981, he remains one of the most instantly recognizable figures in popular music and pop culture. A biopic about the man was always going to be a tough task from the outset. Bob Marley: One Love certainly won’t be the definitive look at the reggae icon, but it is an admirable attempt, thanks to its lead performances.
Rather than be an overall look at his all-too-brief life, Bob Marley: One Love covers a short (albeit very eventful) part of it from 1976 to 1978. The film starts off with Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir), already an established star in Jamaica, preparing to launch the Smile Jamaica benefit concert in hopes of fostering peace between the country’s two major political parties – the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party – in the midst of escalating violence.
However, just days before the concert, an attempt is made on both Bob’s life as well as his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) at their home. The pair survive and are able to perform at the show, but Bob is rattled enough by the event that he flees to London, whereas Rita moves to the US with their children. That time in London would eventually inspire the creation of his album Exodus, the album that would launch him and his message of peace to international superstardom.
“Bob Marley: One Love certainly won’t be the definitive look at the reggae icon, but it is an admirable attempt, thanks to its lead performances.”
While the decision to cover an important period in his life rather than an all-encompassing summary is not inherently a bad idea, It feels like director Reinaldo Marcus Green (who co-wrote the film alongside writers Terence Winter, Zach Baylin and Frank E. Flowers) missed opportunities to focus on aspects of Marley’s life that casual fans may not know much about. Instead, we are given a few flashbacks that only somewhat touch on his past as a mixed-race child growing up in Jamaica without any knowledge of his White father.
In addition, the movie starts off with Marley already being successful, which means the movie skips over the rise of him and his band, The Wailers, without explaining what set them apart from other reggae acts of the time. Instead, the movie speeds through the motions of other biopics down to the same average tropes done in the same order, like a scene where a needle drop is used as a song he just finished writing (in this case, Turn Your Lights Down Low) or the shady manager secretly taking money and the blow-up afterwards.
That being said, there’s only so much Bob Marley: One Love could explore while maintaining the approval of the Marley estate; the real-life Rita as well as children Ziggy and Cedella are among the film’s producers. Maintaining that approval meant any potentially rougher edges that Marley had as a person (like his numerous infidelities or his more complicated political feelings) were sanded down so as not to disturb his current image as a messenger for peace.
“It was a refreshing change to see Rastafari culture and spirituality in a way that felt authentic and genuinely respectful, unlike most depictions in pop culture.”
What thankfully did get a decent amount of screentime was in the exploration of Marley’s Rastafarian beliefs, his origins and how they inform everything from his music to his lifestyle and health. It was a refreshing change to see Rastafari culture and spirituality in a way that felt authentic and genuinely respectful, unlike most depictions in pop culture that reduce it to smoking weed and having dreadlocks.
Bob Marley: One Love’s biggest bright spot is in its casting of Bob Marley himself. Walking in, I was originally wary of English actor Kingsley Ben-Adir, playing arguably the most famous Jamaican man of all time. Thankfully, Ben-Adir almost perfectly captures Marley’s spirit, charm and spirituality on and off the stage while maintaining a surprisingly strong Patois. The same praise goes for Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley.
Even if Rita’s role throughout the film could be reduced to the stock “supportive wife” role that i get annoyed about in these biopics, Lynch’s great performance manages to make Rita feel fleshed-out and her own person who exists independent of Bob whenever she appears on screen. I do have to note that while I don’t speak patois, I still understand it thanks to growing up around Caribbean communities like my father’s side of the family. I could only imagine that other audiences may struggle to understand some of the dialects here.
Bob Marley: One Love, thankfully, isn’t a character assassination of its central figure the way that Bohemian Rhapsody did Freddie Mercury. That being said, it’s unfortunate that in being a mild crowd-pleaser, we don’t get a more fascinating biopic that truly encapsulates all of Marley, warts and all. I don’t think anyone who walks into the film will come out knowing much more about Marley than they did coming in. But if the movie gets younger crowds to dig into Marley’s catalogue and do more research about the man and his positive message, then that’s all that really matters.
