Bob Marley: One Love
Musical biopic clichés are elevated by stellar performances from Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch.
Film Yap is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I think director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “Bob Marley: One Love” (now in theaters) has been somewhat unfairly maligned thus far. Is it the most comprehensive look at the reggae icon? No, that would be documentarian Keven Macdonald’s 2012 offering “Marley,” which at 145 minutes runs a whopping 41 minutes longer than “One Love.” But as a cursory glance at the legendary artist’s life this will most assuredly do.
Rising star Kingsley Ben-Adir admirably plays our title character, but we also see Marley as a child (Nolan Collignon) grappling with having an absentee colonizer father and as a teenager (Quan-Dajai Henriques) honing his musical chops and romancing Rita (played in adolescence by Nia Ashi and winningly in adulthood by the always-reliable Lashana Lynch).
The crux of the movie involves political and social unrest in Marley’s native Jamaica and what he’s willing to do quell the violence. After he and Rita both get shot for their troubles, Marley sends she and their children to America to stay with his mother while he retreats to London to record the legendary album “Exodus.” The cancer that ultimately claimed Marley’s life is also addressed in the picture’s final third.
“One Love” as directed by Green and co-written by “The Sopranos” and “Boardwalk Empire” vet Terence Winter, music video director Frank E. Flowers (he’s helmed spots for Marley’s sons Ziggy and Damian), Zach Baylin (who previously collaborated with Green on “King Richard”) and Green himself is pretty boilerplate musical biopic stuff. However, it’s elevated at almost every turn by the winning performances of Ben-Adir and Lynch, sterling cinematography from Robert Elswit (reteaming with Green after “King Richard” … his recurring imagery of a field afire will be burnt into my brain for some time to come) and by Marley’s masterful music itself (it’s hard to be mad hearing these tunes in really good theatrical sound).
“One Love” is produced by the real-life Rita, the aforementioned Ziggy, Ziggy’s wife Orly and Marley’s daughter Cedella and these folks deserve a lot of credit for allowing Marley to be shown warts and all. His infidelities aren’t shied away from nor are they overly dwelled upon. As depicted by Ben-Adir, Marley is a good man, a talented man and a man with flaws and foibles. (Between this and Regina King’s “One Night in Miami…” where he played Malcom X, Ben-Adir is giving the late, great Chadwick Boseman (who played Jackie Robinson, James Brown and Thurgood Marshall) a run for his money in playing legendary black figures.)
I didn’t dig “One Love” as much as I did “Marley” nor “King Richard,” but y’all should still come for Marley’s music and stick around for Ben-Adir and Lynch’s stellar performances.