Bob Marley : One Love- Rasta’s Jah

BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE celebrates the life and music of an icon who inspired generations through his message of love and unity. On the big screen for the first time, discover Bob’s powerful story of overcoming adversity and the journey behind his revolutionary music.

REVIEW:

I tend to make a difference in what I expect from a big studio biography of Bob Marley and that of an independent studio. It boils down to give me the basics of his life, a lot of his music, a decent amount of hagiography, some minor foibles to make him look human, but not enough to besmirch his legend. If you want the real Bob Marley, a smaller studio can dwell on that with a film pitched to the adherents who can stand some myth destruction and noticeably human flaws.

Bob Marley: One Love is the big studio version of his life. It gave me what I was expecting, and did it entertainingly. So what was not included didn’t bother me- his dismissal of women, his affairs, his being a distant father to his son, Ziggy. That’s stuff for the sequel, or prequel, the small independent film to explore. Critics that complain this biopic doesn’t give the full picture are missing the point.

The focus here is on the two year London exile where the pacifist Marley (Kingsley Ben-Adair) refined his legend after surviving an assasination attempt during a time of political violence in Jamaica. It’s not about the politics, but the music, the coming together of his masterpiece album, Exodus– his finding the connections between his Rastafarian beliefs and music identity.

There’s the expected flashback to his impoverished childhood, to his meeting his wife, Rita (Nia Ashi as a child, Lashana Lynch in adulthood) that come before the big concert song. Ben-Adir, whose historical credentials go back to playing Malcolm X in One Night in Miami, does an excellent mimic of the essential Marley- the artist grounded in knowing who and exactly what he is and how this resoluteness fuels his music. Ben-Adir captures the joy of Marley and how that infectiousness allows his audience to connect with him. One Love is wall to wall Marley hits. When Marley is not singing his music , the film montages the songs into his everyday existence. Playing soccer, jogging, a joint party with the buds, there’s an appropriate Marley song playing on the soundtrack.

The hidden Marley is there blurred or an unnoticed extra in the background. Cindy Breakspeare (Umi Myers), a former Miss World, the most noticeable of his infidelities and the mother of one of his twelve children, sits in on the studio sessions, silent, isolated and out of focus. Ziggy, one of his five children with Rita, is the only one mentioned or seen. Maybe, it’s intentional, Ziggy is listed as a producer along with Rita.

Lynch as Rita gives the most inhabited performance in One Love. And her character is the only who is allowed to poke holes in the hagiography. Lynch shows the audience the complexity of loving Marley and living with his genius and blind spots. In the concert scenes, she’s the background singer, who stoically puts on a good face on stage, even after the most brutal fights. One Love biggest ironies are fleetingly seen- the times when Marley puts a hand on her shoulder as if to nudge Rita into a display of public forgiveness . Those scenes, over in a blink, are the only notes of cruelty buried under acceptance that are allowed to slip through.