Bob Marley: One Love review: Legendary artist's life and legacy deserve better

Bob Marley: One Love traces two years in the Jamaican reggae singer’s life, from 1976 to 1978. It was a tumultuous time in his native Caribbean island nation and the most fruitful of his short but legendary career as he recorded his famous album, Exodus. History intertwined with the creative process should make for a riveting story. Unfortunately director Reinaldo Marcus Green, along with his co-screenwriters Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin, waste this opportunity and Marley’s legacy with a rather limp story full of cliches and perplexing choices.

Instead of telling the story of this singular artist and the inspirational impact he had on a generation, the filmmakers come up with a narrative full of all the musical biopic cliches. The marketing executive who doesn’t understand the creative process? Check. The bad manager who steals from the artist? Check. The excess and extramarital affairs that come with success? Check. These events might have happened in Marley’s life, but the bland way they are presented, with scenes full of bad dialogue and awkward framing, make them look rather anonymous. It could be any other musician, they do not feel specific to Marley.

The unimaginative cliches continue in the scenes that depict the making and recording of Exodus. Marley, played as an adult by Kingsley Ben-Adir, is shown pacing around in his London living room, trying to write while the TV blares news of violence from home. In the recording studio he recruits a new guitar player by taunting him to prove himself. He is surrounded by his band the Wailers, yet none of those characters are given any distinctive characteristics so they appear as an interchangeable Greek chorus there to just nod their approval or disapproval of what Marley comes up with.

All of these choices could have been forgiven if Green managed to make the concert sequences and musical performances memorable. Surprisingly there’s not enough of Marley’s music in this musical biopic. The audience who will buy tickets to this film primarily to see and hear Marley’s music—Ben-Adir lip syncs to the original vocals—will be disappointed. There is not even one full song sequence, just snippets of a few of his hits. And many of Marley’s best known songs—”Get Up Stand Up,” “Is This Love,” “Stir It Up”—are excluded. These songs might not be part of Exodus but this is exactly the time to take some creative liberties.

Ben-Adir gets Marley’s head and hair shake down pat, but he doesn’t have Marley distinctive energy and movement during performances. He’s forced to give a ridiculous contemplative look away from the camera every time Green cuts away to a flashback. This is repeated so many times it becomes laughable instead of moving. Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch, who plays Marley’s partner and band member Rita, can’t bring any heat to that marriage with the material they are given. They play Bob and Rita as siblings more than a couple with no sparks flying whatsoever.

Even the requisite big marital fight is framed with cutaway mid shots where the two actors are almost never in the same frame, so the audience never gets a sense of their bond nor their rift. Lynch has a fleeting moment as she sings “No Woman No Cry” on stage where she’s able to show Rita’s pain. Otherwise the character stays in the background just supporting her man, her contributions to the Wailers not part of this story. Faring much better than Ben-Adir is Quan-Dajai Henriques, who plays teenage Marley. He ably telegraphs Marley’s wonder as he discovers his musical talent and falls in love with Rita.

The film tries to give Marley’s life dramatic heft by referring to his struggle about never knowing his white father, who abandoned him and his mother. Green dramatizes this by cutting away to a child Marley running away from a burning field and towards a shadowy figure on a horse. By the finale these scenes are linked to Marley’s cancer diagnosis and his acceptance of his short life and grand legacy. His is a legacy that continues to inspire freedom seeking people all over the world, yet Bob Marley: One Love reduces it to daddy issues.

It seems that there is a musical biopic released every other week. In comparison, Bob Marley: One Love comes out at the bottom of the heap. It doesn’t have the formal ambition that Bradley Cooper brought to his telling of Leonard Bernstein’s life in Maestro. It doesn’t even have the reliance on the music that made a mediocre effort like Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody palatable. At least the filmmakers behind that biopic understood the strength of Houston’s voice and filled their film with many songs and recreations of her performances. Green and his collaborators in Bob Marley: One Love make all the wrong choices, ending up with a lifeless biopic that never manages to tell its audience why Bob Marley became a legend nor how he still matters to millions of people to this day.