Bob Marley: One Love

Another day, another biopic about a musician whose music I’m somewhat familiar with but whose personal life I knew little about.

Which isn’t to say I knew nothing about the man. But having never made an effort to learn more about him, I was limited to what had filtered into American pop culture about the larger than life figure. Similarly, I was only familiar with some of his most popular songs, the ones which got airplay on the radio stations my parents listened to in the 90s: “I Shot the Sheriff”, “Buffalo Soldier”, “No Woman, No Cry”, and of course, “Get Up, Stand Up”. So I went into this looking forward to increase my understanding of and appreciation for this incredibly important world figure who died far, far too young.

I was immediately presented with the face of his son, Ziggy Marley, thanking me for coming out to the theater. Which confronted me with the reality: if his family was involved, much less employing his son as a proper producer, this would likely be a sugar coated retelling to lionize the man, not explain him. At most, it might allude to his personal failings, but it would never for a second risk showing anything which could cause you to turn against him.

It does take the right approach from a biopic perspective, in that it endeavors to tell the story of a narrow period of his life (with Kingsley Ben-Adir portraying him), rather than the whole thing. Fittingly, it’s bookended by two concerts: beginning with the attempt on his life two days before Smile Jamaica in 1976, and ending with the One Love Peace Concert in 1978. The intervening time mostly features him soul searching in self-imposed exile in London, exploring anti-colonialist approaches to music making and eventually recording and releasing Exodus. The success of which forces him to navigate what it means for revolutionary music to become corporatized and globalized. All the while, experiencing the early stages of the cancer that would take his life a few short years later.

The movie’s main goal is to build Marley’s reputation as a monumentally selfless man, a revolutionary force for peace and freedom, and a proponent of Rastafari. Much of what he says displays his humility and belief that music, especially reggae, has the power to unify and to heal, and that all his success flows from Jah, who will protect him from those who wish him ill.

As mentioned up top, I can’t speak to the veracity of this account. But it comes across as a puff piece, espousing his sainthood as a man who came from nothing to deliver his people from oppression. That being his defining trait plays a role in robbing the character of the depth and nuance and complication that makes someone feel real, as opposed to just an idea. Especially since for the vast majority of the piece, he shows no weakness, and his only struggle is in deciding how to respond and react to circumstances outside himself trying to hold him back. As we move towards the conclusion, such pressures do finally boil over in a fairly memorable scene as he argues with his wife Rita (Lashana Lynch), but that’s it.

The whole thing is captured in a very stock style, featuring rote and uninteresting filmmaking. It’s not bad, per se, it’s just nothing you haven’t seen before. Which can be fine, if the content was more engaging. But it’s not, partially because it refuses to let any of its major plot points really sit with you. For example, in the assassination attempt, Rita was shot in the head. We get one scene of Marley visiting her in the hospital before we next see her after being discharged a short while later. So its weight isn’t really able to land, robbing it of its power as a motivator driving her husband forward. Which is most notable because all major events or moments are treated the same: something to put on screen, then quickly move past and resolve.

Partially, this is due to a lack of focus. The movie wants to have its cake and eat it, too. A few titles cards at the very beginning inform us that we’re entering his life after he’s achieved near-saint status in Jamaica and popularity the world over, but there are numerous flashbacks to establish earlier parts of his life. We see him meeting Rita, getting involved in Rastafari for the first time, interactions with his faceless father, even his band The Wailers getting their first chance to record. They’re not without relevance to his life, but they do serve to distract from the main story. They help flesh out the man, sure, but I feel like it’d be far more effective to do that in the present day, by spending more time on the most consequential elements of his life as it is now, with him occasionally referring to the past as an illustration of where he came from without completely breaking scene. It leads to a movie unsure whether to respect its own conceit of telling the story of the man through the lens of a few critical years, and raises the question of why so many other parts of his life were omitted.

One thing you cannot accuse this movie of doing is softening the Jamaican Patois, a trap fallen into by others aimed at white audience (most famously 1993’s Cool Runnings). I’m in no position to judge the authenticity of the accents in this movie, but that they hired Jamaican linguist Dr. Joseph Farquharson to consult speaks to sensitivity to getting it right. The accents are thick throughout, with no effort made to slow it down or eliminate colloquialisms which might be unfamiliar to American audiences. The philosophy is that if you pay attention, you’ll get it, even if you can’t parse every single word. And it worked: I understood most of what was being said (although admittedly not all), with everything being reinforced by the acting and filmmaking, so there was never a moment I was lost. And its strong opening week thus far speaks to general audiences agreeing with me.

Biopics are a tough genre. They’ve a foot in two worlds, assaulted from both sides. On the one, if you’re talking about a real person and true events, why not just make a documentary about them? On the other, if you’re going to fictionalize some elements in a bid for greater Truth, why not tell an entirely fictional story? At their best, they allow you to reconstruct reality in a way that illuminates and highlights the power of a person, their essence laid bare and rebuilt with contextualization that lends grander meaning to it. But hitting that angle just right is a tricky thing, and you’ll always be accused of omitting this event or that person. In that way, I do sympathize with director Reinaldo Marcus Green. While mostly sticking to his guns, you can feel him being pulled in various directions, succumbing to pressures that dilute the power of the picture. That’s not to say ruin it: just that try as it might, this can’t manage to set itself apart. Bob Marley the man continues to tower above the movie, outshining attempts at depicting his life on screen.