Bob Marley: One Love (12A)

Biopic shot on location in Jamaica and the UK, which charts Bob Marley's rise from humble beginnings in the village of Nine Mile in the St Ann countryside to superstardom via the violent slums of Trench Town on the edge of Kingston. Raised a Catholic by his mother, Marley develops an interest in the Rastafari faith and he marries Rita Anderson. Their love underpins Marley's ascent in the music world, which accelerates when he signs to Island Records under Chris Blackwell.

LondonNet Film Review

Bob Marley: One Love (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

In the song Three Little Birds, taken from the 1977 album Exodus, Bob Marley and the Wailers repeat the soothing musical refrain: “Don’t worry about a thing/’Cause every little thing gonna be alright.” The calming sentiment certainly applies to director Reinaldo Marcus Green’s reverential biopic, which immortalises the creation of the group’s ninth studio LP on Island Records in broad strokes, a few months after a failed assassination attempt on Marley at his house…

Produced in partnership with the singer’s family, Bob Marley: One Love is too safe, polite and conventional for a trailblazing, defiant artist, who sought to heal the deep political divisions of his homeland and begins this film by insisting that his beloved reggae music feeds a revolution that no guns can stop. Audiences don’t need to worry about London-born Kingsley Ben-Adir in the title role. He vanishes completely behind the cascading dreadlocks of Robert Nesta Marley including a thick musical patois that remains consistently closer to Kingston, Jamaica, than Kingston upon Thames.

Concert sequences are electrifying. Ben-Adir learnt to sing and play the guitar to authentically inhabit the charismatic showman during recreated performances of I Shot The Sheriff, Jamming, and Redemption Song. Lashana Lynch is underserved as Marley’s strong-willed wife Rita, who doesn’t appreciate him doubting her loyalty and in one fiery exchange bites back: “I have to be a wife and a soldier.” It would be nice if Green’s picture could harness some of that fighting spirit.

In late 1976, Jamaica is dangerously divided across political lines and Marley vows to quell the violence by performing at the Smile Jamaica Concert. “Think about cancelling the show for everybody’s safety,” a trusted confidant urges Marley, and, two days before the high-profile gig, gun men break into the singer’s home, shooting Marley, his wife Rita (Lynch) and manager Don Taylor (Anthony Welsh).

Everyone survives – Rita’s dreadlocks save her life – and Marley moves to London with his entourage to begin work on Exodus under Island Records supremo Chris Blackwell (James Norton). “I wanna make a record that can shake up the place,” vows Marley and he seeks refuge in the Rastafari faith and memories of his humble beginnings in the village of Nine Mile in the St Ann countryside via the violent slums of Trench Town on the edge of Kingston.

Punctuated by archive footage, Bob Marley: One Love is a linear tour of the fertile period in the singer’s life leading to his diagnosis with a rare form of skin cancer. Ben-Adir is radiant and he catalyses simmering screen chemistry with Lynch. Their largely harmonious partnership compensates for the emotionally diluted screenwriting that always has one ear tuned to delivering the greatest hits comfortably under two hours. Logically, less is less.

– Sarah Lee