BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE - Mark Reviews Movies

Bob Marley: One Love, Paramount Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 13, 2024

Bob Marley lived a tragically (and, potentially, avoidably) short life, but it must have been more eventful than the portrait offered by Bob Marley: One Love. In theory, this movie focuses on the musician's most political period, since the story is more or less bookended by a pair of concerts meant to ease the rising tensions and violent outbursts of a divided Jamaica. The movie's inability or unwillingness to communicate the causes and nature of that division could be the material's most glaring shortcoming, except that the whole of this biography comes up short in pretty much every aspect of its story.

The one obvious exception is the music, which is to be expected of a movie revolving around a music artist whose most famous tunes are almost as well-known more than 40 years after his death as they were at his professional peak. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green plays all—or at least most—of the hits throughout the movie, as a background soundtrack, in the recoding studio, or on stage at one of those concerts. When that trademark reggae percussion pops, we know we're going to hear something great, so the movie has that going for it.

It also has a fine performance from Kingsley Ben-Adir as the Jamaican singer, although much of the role comes down to the man's ability to go with the flow in life and in performing music. Ben-Adir simply has to be laid-back, come across as inherently charming, and adopt a convincing dialect, and he does all of those things well enough that one wishes the screenplay had given the actor even a little more to explore and portray.

Instead, the script—written by Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin, and the director—just goes through the routine motions of any given biography of a famous musician. The music stands out here so much, perhaps, because it's the one thing that comes to define the movie's idea of Marley, which is of a man who just wants to make and play music, use music as a way to engender peace and tranquility among humanity, and make and play some more music.

There are hints of some deeper philosophy to the man's worldview, defined by the Rastafarian faith that arises in a handful of scenes, and suggestions that he may have allowed some temptations to overcome him at times, such as the presence of a few women who aren't his wife in the backdrop and a moment of anger with a member of his management team. Just because a movie puts forth the notion of some depth or flaws in a subject, though, doesn't intrinsically imbue that character with depth or flaws, especially when said movie can barely show us why a legitimate musical icon like Marley is one in the first place.

Part of the issue might be the screenplay's limited scope, which covers about two years in Marley's life—right before a 1976 concert in Kingston called Smile Jamaica and up to the One Love Peace Concert in the same city in '78. It can't simply be that, though, because the script also does that traditional move of so many biographies by flashing back to the earlier years of the subject's life. Those flashbacks revolve around more music and the youthful romance with the girl who would later become his wife (played in the narrative's present tense by Lashana Lynch), so they're not particularly enlightening, either.

No, the main problem is the movie's limited perspective on what it needs to show, how it shows it, and what it believes is most important about Marley. The story basically opens with him being shot by a group of assailants in his home but recovering and moving on with the concert despite the potentially ongoing threat to his life. Until the finale, that's essentially the end of the story's political angle, so it's not as if the movie's heart is really in it.

The rest of the story is pure formula, as Marley heads to London to write and record music with his band and managers, sets up a European tour, and plans for a series of concerts in Africa. We learn nothing about the creation of any of those songs, which just spring to life from Marley's mind on cue or are inspired by something in a particular scene. Marley and his wife Rita have it out in one scene, when he accuses her of having an affair and she points out his, and despite barely rising again, the political struggles in Jamaica aren't solved by the first concert, meaning he has to return home for another.

There might be something to be said for the way the unforced manner of the narrative reflects the easy-going, peaceful way of the man whose story it's telling. However, such a thought might simply be trying to rationalize why the shallow Bob Marley: One Love only feels like a wasted opportunity, instead of the biographical failure it probably should feel like. Great music and a good attitude maybe go further than one expects them to.

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