Bob Marley: One Love is directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and tells the story of Bob Marley’s from his leaving Jamaica, recording Exodus, and eventually returning to Jamaica. While the film delivers on containing lots of Marley’s music, it lacks a coherent message or focus making it seem more like a sequence of events rather than a fully fledged plot.
Obviously, the best thing going for this movie is Bob Marley’s music which is as powerful now as it was when originally released. From my limited knowledge, it seems that Kingsley Ben-Adir is doing a decent job at mimicking Marley’s movements and stage presence when he performs the songs in the film and this is commendable. Additionally, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the movie for me were the few scenes where Marley was in the studio, with his collaborators, writing music or performing that music on stage. While this is partially due to the movies problems in the characters and plot, I think it also speaks to the intrigue that is present in the creation of music, especially music that means a lot to people. Admittedly, I am no expert in accents but from what I could and could not discern it seems that no compromise was made on the accents of the main characters. Oftentimes, it was difficult for someone like myself who is not used to a heavy Jamaican accent to fully understand what the actors were saying.
Though it does some things right, Bob Marley: One Love has a lot of flaws. For starters, the movie doesn’t seem to know what it wants to say about Bob Marley or what message the audience can take away from his life. I think it is helpful here to draw a distinction between a documentary and a movie and what each needs to accomplish. In a documentary, it is important to be comprehensive and factual in order to present a complete and thorough examination of a particular subject. However, in a movie, the goal is to present a message through the medium of storytelling. Bob Marley: One Love neglects to do this and so it becomes kinda boring. This is mainly caused by the character of Bob Marley being incredibly one-sided. He seems to have no character arc and only does things because the plot needs him to. Any conflict that arises between Bob and his manager or Bob and his wife is almost immediately quashed in a simple, unsatisfactory way and given no time to grow, mature, and develop. This lack of focus on a theme or message from Marley’s life leaves the movie feeling like a collection of cherrypicked moments rather than a coherent narrative. While merely presenting events from the artists life is fine in a documentary, it will make a movie feel arbitrary and meaningless.
In conclusion, Bob Marley: One Love is a disappointing movie which fails to tell a compelling narrative through Bob Marley’s life story.