Kingsley Ben-Adir (Barbie, TV’s Peaky Blinders) stars in One Love, as Jamaican musician Bob Marley. Can this reggae-infused film match the critical and box office successes of recent musical biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man? Read on to find out!

The story

In a time when civil unrest threatens to tear Jamaica apart, Bob Marley and the Wailers are on the precipice of history. Beloved by both sides of the conflict, Marley is determined to unite his countrymen in a way no politician can. When Marley, his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch, Wandavision, No Time To Die), and his manager narrowly survive an assassination attempt, they flee to the UK to heal and concentrate on their music. Leveraging a message of peace, Marley and those nearest him will experience the temptations and pressures of becoming pop culture legends.

The joy of Marley

Sporting Marley’s signature dreadlocks and a Jamaican accent that’ll have viewers scrambling for subtitles, Ben-Adir almost completely disappears into the role of Marley. Far removed from his turn in the execrable Secret Invasion, Ben-Adir’s efforts give life to the (largely) by-the-numbers narrative. Blessed with leading man looks, Ben-Adir is endlessly charismatic, presenting audiences with an idealized version of the world’s most famous Rastafarian. 

The music

From a musical standpoint, the film goes through Marley and the Wailers’ greatest hits, making for a pleasant aural experience. If you went into the film expecting to hear “I Shot the Sheriff”, “One Love”, etc. – you won’t be disappointed. According to the filmmakers, Ben-Adir’s voice was blended with the actual Marley’s for the film’s multiple musical sequences, with the young actor only going solo for scenes where he plays an acoustic guitar off-stage. There’s precious little to be written about the songs used here that hasn’t already been said, suffice it to say that the classic tracks hit somewhat differently when presented in the context of the singer’s life.

It sterilizes history

Past the music, things get dicey, as the film takes pains to avoid the more unsavory elements of Marley’s life in favor of reinforcing his posthumous legend. One assumes this was almost always going to be the case, given that the film counts no less than Marley’s widow, and two of his twelve children as producers. Just as the Queen-produced Bohemian Rhapsody sidestepped a lot of Freddie Mercury’s personal demons to tell a streamlined story, so too does One Love.

The film plays like a checklist of Bob Marley’s life and times, minus any sort of context or insight. Aside from throwaway mentions of Marley’s (near-constant) infidelity, and no mentions whatsoever of his physical abuse of Rita, one could be forgiven for thinking the man was just a misunderstood genius (and/or) saint.

Meet Mrs. Marley

Lashana Lynch’s role as Marley’s long-suffering wife adds much-needed emotionality, her soulful eyes helping to sell the character’s wounded dignity. While it would have been nice to spend more time on Rita’s side of the relationship, Lynch makes the most of her time out of the blockbuster spotlight. Then again, if the script delved into all the extramarital offspring Bob brought home for Rita to raise, there would probably be material enough for two movies, and it would have made the feel-good ending much harder to sell.

Marley as icon (and not much else)

The film’s overreliance on iconography versus character building is clear when the film launches almost immediately into a musical number before we even get to know the main character. The film has no interest in letting us know who Marley is as a person: at its best, we’re spoon-fed the equivalent of bullet points from the man’s Wikipedia page. At its worst, there’s about as much depth here as the obligatory Marley poster on a stoner’s wall. Then again, the film may play better in altered states – who knows?

Post script

Like many biopics, One Love ends with a montage of archival clips that usually serves to 1.) Superimpose the epilogue onto, and 2.) Show off how closely the filmmakers were able to recreate key aspects of their subject’s life. Here, the archival footage is remarkable for looking infinitely more interesting than anything we were shown in the preceding 100 minutes. If the producers and filmmakers had just trusted their audience enough to present Bob Marley as more of a man and less of a brand name, we probably could have had something worth coming back to.

The bottom line

Come for the music, stay for Ben-Adir’s inspired performance! Lack of substance notwithstanding, once one gets past the gloss, One Love is competently made, and almost compelling at times. One Love is a biopic whose filmmakers chose the safest, most pedestrian route to tell their story. A missed opportunity in more ways than one, one hopes that One Love’s shortcomings will encourage people to go out and learn everything that the movie left out.

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