Following the overwhelming box office success of 2018’s Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, films detailing the lives of musical legends were greenlit across Hollywood studio lots. The newest one, Bob Marley: One Love tells the story of reggae icon Bob Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and his attempt to use music to overcame adversity and joy and peace to the world around him.
You may go into One Love expecting to see a typical musical biopic and mostly, that’s exactly what you get. The film begins during a turbulent time in Jamaica’s long and tragic history as its gang-supported political parties are engaged in a proxy war on the streets hay has the entire country on edge and the brink of civil war. Bob is scheduled to throw a concert promoting peace on the island before he, his wife, and his friends are shot by one of the gangs as his foray into politics is seen as an attempt to take sides. From there, we see Bob and the Wailers’ rise to international fame as he seeks to use his music to engender peace, love, and harmony around the world.
While the gist of the story presented in One Love is pretty rudimentary and by the numbers, there is a surprising amount of religiosity and spirituality present in the film that is an interesting creative choice. Bob is shown to be a man who has searched for belonging and purpose since he was a young boy, left on his own in Jamaica by a mother who moved to the United States for work and a White British father who denied his parentage and thus, Bob. As a teen, Bob was led to Rastafarianism by his future wife Rita. The religion began in 1930s Jamaica and believes that the trials and tribulations suffered by the descendants of African slaves are tests from God (or “Jah”, in Rastafarian) until the will be ultimately redeemed and return to “Zion”, or Africa. Former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie is considered the religion’s Messiah. Bob’s religious adherence to Rastafarianism is a central theme in One Love with his music serving as a vessel to spread the message and providing him with purpose and a clear path toward ultimately finding what his own is. This makes the film feel like a highly spiritual one, introducing the audience to Rastafarianism not in a way that proselytizes, but does change its feel and what it seems to be trying to convey.
This different feel does not elevate the film however or provide it with a unique spin. One Love largely feels flat and uninspired, mostly due to a lack of tension or much conflict. Bob Marley was a noted philanderer, but outside of one explosive argument with Rita, not much is made about his legendary prowess as a seductive lothario that women flocked to and the effect this had on his family. The film instead focuses on his religious virtues, his adherence and his ultimate success in spreading its message. In watching, audiences without much knowledge of his life would find Bob’s life largely uneventful and may even ponder just why it rose to the level of having a feature film produced and released. Such is the problem with biopics, particularly musical ones for artists who have passed on, where the family is heavily involved and must be in order for the film’s producers to have access to their legendary catalogues so that the film feels authentic. Most family members will choose to only highlight the positive attributes of their deceased love one instead of mentioning the messier parts of their lives for the sake of a compelling narrative. The decision to lionize and sanitize over showing the totality of a legendary figure, worts and all, often lead to lifeless portrayals and films which is the bucket One Love ultimately falls into. Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch do their best to help, but the film just fails to make much of an impression in the end.
Image: Paramount Pictures
