Musician biopics have become pretty prevalent in the last decade, and with plenty of now-dead famous musicians getting their lives featured on the silver screen, it should have been expected that Bob Marley’s life would get its chance in the spotlight. Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard, Monsters and Men) and featuring Kingsley Ben-Adir (The OA, Peaky Blinders) as the titular musician, Bob Marley: One Love focuses on just under a year and a half of Bob Marley’s life, telling the story of 1976’s Smile Jamaica concert, following Bob Marley and the Wailers until 1978’s One Love Peace Concert.
As a biopic, I expected the film to tell more of the story of Bob Marley’s life, instead of an abridged account of such a short period of his career. There were snippets and flashbacks of his childhood and his time as a young man courting his wife, Rita Marley, portrayed Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel, No Time to Die), but for the most part we only see this short period of his life. Even in this short time, what we are shown feels rather disjointed and disconnected until about halfway into the movie.
Most of this comes from lack of exposition following scene transitions, and dialogue that, other than one or two great lines, wasn’t very impactful at its best, and was downright cringe-worthy at its worst – I had to stop myself from laughing out loud in the theatre the moment a doctor declared that a dreadlock saved a woman’s life by stopping a bullet an inch from her brain.
While I did have a hard time following the beginning of the movie and was somewhat disappointed that it covered so little of Marley’s life, I had a good time watching Bob Marley: One Love. The idea that Bob Marley dedicated his life to enacting positive change in the world through his music was felt throughout the film, and it paid homage to the positive aspects of Marley’s legacy every chance it could.
Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley was far and away my favorite performance of the movie, and while it’s clear Kingsley Ben-Adir tried his best to channel Marley’s mannerisms, his performance felt a bit flat to me, punctuated by actual clips of Bob Marley that were shown over the credits of the film. Ben-Adir does shine in the quieter moments of the film, when he gets to showcase his softer singing voice while portraying Marley writing songs with an acoustic guitar. Otherwise, big performance pieces feature Ben-Adir’s voice blended with Bob Marley’s vocals.
Biopics are a great way to explore the life of an individual, unfortunately I felt that Bob Marley: One Love only gave a surface level look at the life of one of music’s biggest legends. While it does a great job paying homage to Bob Marley’s legacy and message and is supported by a great performance from Lashana Lynch, I didn’t get the feeling that this movie will leave a lasting impression on many moviegoers.
With its less-than-stellar writing giving us little more than a play-by-play of the events between 1976 and 1978, Bob Marley: One Love ends up being a rather middle-of-the-road biopic rather than one of the greats.
Score: 7/10
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