Bob Marley: One Love Review – Unifying Music Biopic Light on Insight

Bob Marley hardly needs an introduction. As the King of Reggae who brought Jamaican music to the global stage, Marley became an international icon of freedom and unity before his early death from cancer at age 36. His songs of struggle and redemption continue to move hearts and open minds decades later. But biopics of larger-than-life cultural figures often fall short of capturing their essence.

The new film Bob Marley: One Love sets out to portray a crucial period in the late 1970s when Marley survived an assassination attempt and left violence-plagued Jamaica for England. There he recorded his landmark Exodus album and solidified his worldwide fame, all while receiving a devastating cancer diagnosis that would soon end his life. It’s heavy material ripe for nuanced exploration. Yet as a produced-by-the-family biopic, One Love also runs the risk of sanitizing Marley’s story into a safe, commercialized package – missing out on the shades of gray that made him so compelling.

Walking this tightrope, director Reinaldo Marcus Green takes a workmanlike approach in chronicling the events of Marley’s pivotal exile years. Where he succeeds and where he stumbles makes for an uneven yet still worthwhile experience for Marley fans. One Love may not fully capture the soul of its legendary subject, but it offers flashes of insight into what fueled his messages of unity and redemption.

Tracking a Pivotal Era

One Love focuses on a turbulent period in Marley’s life from 1976 to 1978 that would profoundly shape his legacy. As Bob Marley and the Wailers rise to become Jamaica’s biggest musical act, the island nation sinks into violent political division. Hoping to unite people with his apolitical “Smile Jamaica” concert, Marley instead becomes a target when gunmen break into his home, shooting his wife Rita and grazing Marley with bullets.

Miraculously, Marley goes on to perform the concert two days later. But realizing Jamaica is no longer safe for his family, he impulsively exits to London. There Marley immerses himself in the growing punk scene, but struggles to find inner peace amidst his newfound exile. Meanwhile, Rita recovers in Delaware with their children, questioning if she still has a place by Bob’s side.

In an effort to “make sense of it all,” as he tells Chris Blackwell from Island Records, Marley puts his homesickness and heartache into his music. At Blackwell’s rustic estate, he joyfully jams on a cricket pitch with the Wailers and Blackwell’s house band. From these laidback sessions emerge new Marley classics like “Exodus,” “Waiting in Vain,” “Jamming,” and the haunting “Natural Mystic”— songs that cement Marley as an international superstar.

The film builds to Marley’s triumphant return to Jamaica for the historic One Love Concert aimed at easing tensions between warring political factions. Tragically, it’s a bittersweet homecoming as Marley privately deals with a stage three cancer diagnosis that he initially tries ignoring. As Rita reaffirms her devotion to Marley, he emerges from his exile newly centered in his mission – aware he must urgently bring people together before time runs out.

Channeling the Chief

Taking on a cultural giant like Bob Marley would intimidate most actors. But as Kingsley Ben-Adir proved in his acclaimed turn as Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, he has a knack for thoroughly inhabiting iconic figures. While Ben-Adir bears little physical resemblance to Marley, that disappears once the charismatic actor starts speaking in the singer’s thick Jamaican lilt.

After studying Marley’s vocal inflections for months through archival tapes, Ben-Adir nails the loose-limbed physicality and unique growl that made Marley such a magnetic stage presence. In an role with little room for improvisation given the historical scrutiny, Ben-Adir shines most in capturing Marley’s contradictory spirit – humble yet cocky, light-hearted yet deeply serious about his art and message.

The musical performance scenes are where Ben-Adir best channels Marley’s possessed passion. As Marley loses himself in the grooves onstage, Ben-Adir unleashes dance moves equal parts graceful and erratic. Singing along to Marley’s own recordings, Ben-Adir gives himself fully to each number, marching and skanking to the beats like a man possessed. The sequences properly resurrect Marley at his peak as the chief spirit channeler and master entertainer he was.

If the more dramatic biopic material doesn’t fully come together, it’s no fault of Ben-Adir’s committed performance. He delivers a portrayal destined to be remembered among the classic musical biopic turns. We can only hope it revives wider interest in Marley’s immortal music and perennially relevant rallying cry for human unity.

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Standout Supporting Turns

While One Love rests heavily on Kingsley Ben-Adir’s shoulders as Bob Marley, a few supporting players round out pivotal real-life figures. Chief among them is Lashana Lynch as Marley’s wife and backing vocalist, Rita. Displaying gravitas and grace, Lynch makes Rita the film’s moral center in her devotion to her conflicted husband. Rita serves as Marley’s rock amidst the violence in Jamaica and the hollow glitz he encounters abroad. Their scenes bristle with a familiar intimacy and tension that hint at hidden depths beneath their spiritual bond.

As Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, James Norton further fleshes out another father figure in Marley’s orbit. Norton charts Blackwell’s journey from early champion of Marley’s raw sound to beneficiary of his eventual crossover fame. He becomes an unlikely creative collaborator as Blackwell hosts Marley and the Wailers during their fertile Exodus sessions. Norton deftly conveys Blackwell’s sincere personal investment mingled with undeniable commercial interests.

The rest of the supporting players, however, barely register as one-dimensional backdrop. From the interchangeable Wailers to the procession of music industry suits, the characters surrounding Marley lack definition. While Lynch and Norton breathe life into their real-life counterparts, the rest feel like proxies to hit biopic beats. One Love hints at hidden depths in Marley’s relationships but fails to deliver beyond his soulful partnership with Rita.

Musical Highlights

Any biopic about a revolutionary musician lives or dies by the depiction of their creative process and live performances. This proves the most compelling dimension of One Love. In capturing Marley in the studio and on stage, director Reinaldo Marcus Green immerses us into the innovative spirit that birthed both reggae and Marley’s own sonic wizardry.

A early highlight shows Marley and the fledgling Wailers improvising “Simmer Down” during a cramped 1962 studio session. We feel the spontaneous magic as the band channels the ska/rocksteady sound that eventually evolves into reggae. The scene transports us within Marley’s creative incubator as his genre-shaping gifts first flower.

The subsequent London sessions find Marley reconnecting with his muse in exile. Holed up at Island Records founder Chris Blackwell’s country estate, jubilant jam sessions unfold on the cricket pitch. Marley chases his blues away through playful improvisation with guitarist Al Anderson and keyboardist Tyrone Downie that fittingly yields some prime feel-good Marley standards. We witness the natural ease with which he conjured his catchy melodies and spiritual lyrics.

Yet the most electric sequences come on stage, where Kingsley Ben-Adir channels Marley’s trademark intensity as a whirling dervish performer.loses himself so deeply into the grooves that we achieve a transcendental concert high. For these fleeting moments, One Love makes us believers again in Marley’s gospel of unity through song.

Where It Falls Short

As an officially sanctioned biopic, One Love shies away from dirtier aspects of Marley’s legacy. It sanitizes his story into a family-friendly fable that scrubs away grittier shades of his artistry, activism, and personal relationships.

The film simplifies Jamaica’s violent post-colonial political divisions into a vague background menace rather than insightfully addressing Marley’s own ideology. Supporting characters like his wife Rita feel more like archetypes than fully-realized figures. The few white music executives shown seem clueless about Marley’s deeper significance rather than intentionally exploiting it.

One Love also glosses over thornier personal issues from womanizing scandals to rumors of hidden billions in royalties. The narrow timeframe means we get no genesis story for the Marley legend or the origins of pioneering Jamaican music genres he synthesized into his signature sound. His rich collaborations with peers like Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer are entirely omitted.

Instead the film functions as a greatest hits compilation of biopic clichés. Paint-by-numbers scenes chronicle familiar moments like the spontaneous studio jam session that births a future hit or the climatic career-validating concert. Yet the film fails to properly build dramatic stakes around his rise into a peace-preaching superstar versus the life-or-death stakes surrounding his fight against cancer. Marley’s increasing devotion to his cause amidst personal tragedies emerges less powerfully than it should.

While One Love entertains as an adequate primer introducing newcomers to Marley 101, it lacks the ambition or edge to truly stir the soul and do justice to such a towering figure. We’re left wanting the more layered, hard-hitting portrait such a creative revolutionary deserves.

Worthwhile with Caveats

As a properly reverent overview of Bob Marley’s epochal legacy, One Love will sufficiently entertain diehard fans and curious newcomers alike. Even if the man himself remains out of reach, the film offers surface-level insights into what drove his otherworldly music. Kingsley Ben-Adir’s committed lead performance and compelling concert reenactments breathe intermittent life into Marley’s outsized persona.

Yet the glossy production’s reluctance to wrestle with thornier aspects of Marley’s life and career can’t help but disappoint. We never fully glimpse past the beatific caricature to the flesh-and-blood man in full. Supporting characters likewise feel more like shadows than complex figures in Marley’s orbit.

While judicious as an intro for neophytes, the film misses chances to meaningfully challenge perceptions of Marley. We have to content ourselves with enjoying the soundtrack and Ben-Adir’s transfixing incarnation of the chief Wailer as a whirling stage mystic. One Love puts Marley’s core philosophy of unity and personal redemption front and center. But it stops short of entirely selling us on the flawed mortal vessel behind that eternal voice.

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