Bob Marley: One Love

In cinemas now

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Lee Hall’s excellent Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical in London’s West End. It offers a thorough examination of its subject’s life, exploring not only his cultural, political, and social impact on the world, but also his ambiguous home life and renown infidelity, thus giving a comprehensive and unbiased assessment of his character. Watching this cautious biopic from Reinaldo Marcus Green, I couldn’t help but pine for Hall’s altogether braver interpretation.

In defence of Green, who showed himself to be a solid director with 2021’s King Richard, both he and lead writers Frank E. Flowers and Terence Winter are somewhat hamstrung by the fact that One Love is produced by Rita and Ziggy Marley, both of whom are presumably and, of course, understandably keen to focus the film on the musical legacy of their late husband and father. When you’re regaling the work of a songwriter as proficient as the Wailers frontman, that isn’t an entirely bad creative direction to take, and this biopic definitely captures the soulful essence of Marley’s work, thanks in no small part to Kingsley Ben-Adir’s committed lead performance.

Also of interest is the film’s admirable willingness to explore the Rastafari religion, a critical aspect of Marley’s identity that is so often othered by uninformed Western audiences. In that sense, One Love is indebted to Lashana Lynch’s turn as Rita, whose role perfectly articulates how the commercial success of the Wailers jarred with the spiritual leanings of its members.

Still, there is a frustrating hollowness to Green’s film that means it never truly gets under the skin of its subject in a way that any meaningful biopic should, leaving us with a jukebox retrospective that isn’t befitting of the cultural giant it seeks to celebrate.