Bob Marley: One Love

Underwhelming but not unlovable, 

Bob Marley: One Love is a pleasant enough experience, buoyed by strong performances by Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch as Bob and Rita Marley.

It’s also probably the most undemanding watch this year has produced, at least so far. The movie basically coasts by on its admittedly killer soundtrack, so much so that it almost forgets to tell a story with any lasting dramatic impact.

Which is pretty odd, when you consider the dramatic potential of Bob Marley’s life story. Abandoned as a child by his father and raised by his mother Cedella, over the course of the movie an awful lot of good and bad stuff happens to the reggae superstar.

The film is bookended by two legendary performances, starting out with the Smile Jamaica concert in 1976, which was meant to unite the poverty stricken island, but which led to a lot of shenanigans between the two most powerful political parties on the island, the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Even though Marley wasn’t taking sides, an attempt is made on his life, in which his manager Don Taylor (Anthony Welsh) is severely wounded and his wife Rita is injured enough to be hospitalized, even though she recovers soon enough to check herself out to perform at the concert with her husband, who only received minor injuries. 

During the performance of the opening song War he hallucinates that the shooter is standing in the crowd, waiting to take another shot at him - a rare gripping moment of high tension.

After the show Marley sends Rita and the kids to Canada, while he himself relocates to London to record Bob Marley and The Wailers’ beloved album Exodus (1977), which was inspired, like most of his work, by his Rastafari beliefs and put him on the road to even greater global stardom. 

It’s inspirational stuff, but even though it’s lovingly shot by the great Robert Elswit (Inherent Vice), director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) hardly ever creates any real dramatic tension. 

With the exception perhaps of one other memorable scene, which takes place in Paris, in which Bob and Rita try to argue their way out of a potentially fatal marital crisis. 

Thing is, even though Rita confronts her man with his many infidelities - she was very understanding considering he fathered eleven children with seven different women - we never catch anything more than a passing glimpse of (a couple) of his other (potential) lovers. 

So unless you already know a lot about Bob Marley’s life going in, this truly is a case of suggesting a deeper ‘there’ that isn’t there, cause it just isn’t backed up by the rest of the story.

Of course, I know the movie was made by Paramount in partnership with the Marley family, but that almost always leads to a sanitized version of what possibly could have been a better and much more insightful movie. 

Bob Marley: One Love is at its best when the creators just let the music blast through the speakers, which, fortunately for me, happens often enough. 

Also, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch both capture the essence of their characters, both on- and offstage, which is no mean feat considering the real-life charisma of Bob and Rita Marley. 

James Norton (Little Women) also makes an impression as industry legend Chris Blackwell, the boss of Island Records.

The movie ends with the One Love concert in Jamaica, during which Marley managed to get the leaders of the warring political parties together on stage to celebrate with him, ‘the most famous person in Jamaica,’ as he is described at one point in the movie.

Bob Marley wanted to bring peace, love and unity to the world, and even though that’s hard to achieve on a permanent basis, he left us with a lot of wonderful music that still inspires a lot of people to this day. 

This movie is, at the very least, a timely reminder of his greatness.