Bob Marley: One Love Is More Messy Than Catchy
Bob Marley: One Love is a rushed mess of a biopic that does little to make us learn more about what makes Bob Marley tick. This is coming from a guy who knows little about the musician other than knowing he likes to get stoned and promote peace. That and he dies of cancer. Spoiler/not a spoiler unless you think Bob Marley is still alive. The movie hits all the familiar beats of a biopic. There's a troubled childhood, a woman who's the Love of his life, holding concerts when warned not to, and grand speeches about why Bob's music will change the world. It's okay to make a conventional biopic. What's not okay is making such a forgettable one.
The movie wants to go in too many places at too many times. The film flashes between the timeline where Bob is going on tour while Jamaica is in political turmoil. The other plot is Bob's childhood. Yet we don't get much insight into his childhood beyond mere glimpses. There's a continuous shot that's used, showing a burned forest as Bob is being chased by a white man on a horse. What the striking image means is anyone's guess. Director Reinaldo Marcus Green attempts to dive into the psychology of Bob Marley, but he leaves so many plot threads going that we only get a vague understanding of the man.
The movie starts with the typical autobiography opening title establishing Bob Marley. Jamaica is in political turmoil. The land is ravaged by violence. It isn't the peace-loving place that's representative of Marley's music. Bob wants to be a symbol of love. So he holds a concert in Jamaica to help mend the wounds of its hurt people. Although Marley is warned it's too dangerous to hold the concert, he does so anyway. The show is cut short anyway due to Marley being in danger.
Later, Marley is attacked in his home by two armed men. The gunmen aiming for Bob end up hitting his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) instead. His friend Don Taylor (Anthony Welsh) gets hit as well. Neither are gravely injured. Or at least that's what the movie makes us think. Somehow, despite being hit by bullets, these folks are just fine. Is that how it went down, or did the film speed up their recovery to push the narrative forward? There's a throwaway line of dialogue when Rita is in the hospital where someone says her dreadlocks stopped the bullet. Is that even possible? In what seems like an improbability, Rita shows up a couple of scenes later without even a bandage on her head.
The timeline of this film is all over the place. The movie jumps from big event to big event with little room to breathe. We go from Jamaica to Paris, to London, and back to Paris within the span of three years in a film that's one hour and forty-four minutes long (not including credits). The film chronicles Bob's struggle with touring, getting into fights with bandmates, and finding the inspiration for his music. Particularly Exodus. It's a by-the-books narrative that loses track of the very things that make an engaging story. For instance, Bob Marley has children, yet they're hardly in the film. We see them on a couple of occasions to remind the audience that they exist, but they take a back seat to Bob Marley's tour. Marley is diagnosed with cancer in the film. As we all know, he dies from it, but it plays more as a footnote than a driving factor. There are too many conflicts going on at once where we can focus on just one to move the plot.
I hardly say this, but Bob Marley: One Love could have benefitted from a longer length. If each plot point were focussed a little more and for a little longer, then the narrative wouldn't be as jumbled. The film could have started from Bob's childhood, moving forward to his adulthood instead of constantly flashing back to it with little subtext. The movie suggests in a confrontation between Bob and Rita that he's a womanizer. Yet, we hardly see him womanizing in the film. There's a lot of that in the movie. There are too many hacky sacks in the air to render Bob Marley: One Love a coherent narrative. If there's a strong point to the movie, it's Kingsley Ben-Adir's performance as Bob Marley. Kingsley sounds like Marlie, and I think he may have even performed some of the songs. Either that, or they did one heck of a job with the ADR. It's too bad his performance is lost in a standard biopic that does little to stand above the others to be memorable.
