Bob Marley – One Love Movie Review: The Immortal Essence of Bob Marley Pervades the Entire Film
Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, Jesse Cilio, James Norton, Michael Gandolfini, Nadine Marshall, Anthony Welsh
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Where We Watched: At A Preview
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
Bob Marley – One Love is all set to release in cinemas from 14th February around the world, here we are going to review the film. Over the last decade, so many biographical films about music icons present, past, and departed have arrived in theaters and streaming that a dedicated tier list could now be created. Do you know that sort of graph divided into several lines – from S for super to F for seriously insufficient in the typical US school voting system – that streamers and YouTubers use to make rankings on every existing topic, from the most serious to the most facetious? Here is a tier list. Bob Marley, who was he? We understand it soon, between a Jah, a Rastafari, pronounced Rastafarai, a certain number of joints, not even too many, and dreadlocks, so saving as to block a bullet “one millimeter of the brain” (of his wife, Rita). When we talk about Bob Marley, we unequivocally interface with the history of music and, in a certain way, with the messages that this can and manages to convey.
The iconic vocal timbre, the legendary lyrics, and the reading of his present have made the voice of this artist indelible and immortal, not by chance, translating a real approach to singing creativity, and carefully reflecting on the profound meanings between the notes. Bob Marley: One Love, the new film directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and available in cinemas, is developed by the same singer-songwriter who is its title, outlining a rhythmic and iconographic autobiographical journey. The power of Bob Marley: One Love lies entirely in the reality of its protagonist himself, and in the story that led him to be the indelible icon that we know, immediately revealing the important celebratory intent behind this cinematic project. In trying to bring to life the face, movements, and vision of an artist still listened to all over the world today, the film attempts to address both the public of enthusiasts and the more generalist, starting a discussion in the room that involves not only music but also politics and history.
Bob Marley – One Love Review: The Story Plot
A biographical film about a singer-songwriter or pop icon is that haven that combines the need to make a film even when you have few original ideas with the secret hope of attracting fans of that musical artist to the theater. Often the human and financial involvement of someone close to the artist is also added to the equation: a variable that tends to make a good part of these operations border even more on hard and pure hagiography. Unfortunately, Bob Marley: One Love leans in this direction, for many reasons. In summary, it is a fairly conventional film, which demonstrates that it has learned the lesson of the contemporary biopic, expressing it in a laudatory form. Anyway, if you want to know the true story of Bob Marley, we made this special.
It does so in such a respectful way that it fails to incisively describe its musical and human protagonist, preferring to remember and praise his merits. A result which, to be malicious, was already written from the beginning, considering the production of his son Ziggy Marley and the direction of Reinaldo Marcus Green. In the latter’s CV, A Winning Family stands out – in negative – King Richard, the sports biopic on the father of the Williams sisters which led Will Smith to win a much-desired Oscar but was overshadowed by a single gesture that seriously damaged his reputation career.
Bob Marley – One Love Review and Analysis
The main objective of Bob Marley: One Love is to reconstruct Bob Marley’s life, starting from some salient moments in both his career and personal life. Thus we fleetingly savor his childhood and then are catapulted into his more adult and mature age, when as a singer he was already very famous throughout Jamaica, also introducing us to the socio-cultural context in which the musical myth took life and form. In the role of the protagonist, we find Kingsley Ben-Adir, who has the arduous task of bringing a world star and a pillar of the musical history of all time to the screen. Bob Marley: One Love, therefore, flows without dwelling too much on minimal details, staging the journey of the artist and man who contributed to revolutionizing the very concept of reggae music, based on a reality that is difficult to manage and digest. The fight against oppression pervades the entire duration of a film that attempts to embrace the essence of a seemingly elusive artist, showing him as he creates, composes, and travels the world, struggling with what he carries inside from an early age.
One of the very first things that catches your eye while watching Bob Marley: One Love is undoubtedly the attention paid to Kingsley Ben-Adir’s interpretation, capable of immersing himself completely in the protagonist of the story. His transformation and the work on a linguistic level are certainly two points in favor of the overall performance (we saw the film in the original language), capable of fascinating from the very first moments. At the same time, we find careful musical selection in the soundtrack and a supporting cast that convinces and inspires interest. We could almost split Bob Marley: One Love into two sides that develop in parallel and at the same speed. On the one hand we have the very clear documentary and biographical intent at the basis of the cinematographic project, the source of all the attraction, on the other, however, a particular political-musical reflection that is perfectly linked to the same voice that has always distinguished Bob Marley himself from other songwriters of his age.
The fight against racial oppression and the achievement of equality and independence by putting aside the differences between people remain a constant in the entire story through images, which are not only testimony to a character who existed but renewed through his vision and voice. In this sense, fascinated by the legend, we find ourselves involved in an interesting historical-musical cross-section, in which Bob Marley: One Love moves by committing itself to telling a story that many people know, also alternating it with moments of profound personal reflection and intimate in-depth analysis. At the same time, we find the bewitching power of music remembered by all and still cited far and wide today, capable of transporting us to a precise place and moment, without ever putting aside the more human possibilities of the story through images.
The Bob Marley interpreted and constructed by Kingsley Ben-Adir is determined and consistent with the known imagery of this character. At the same time, however, the actor offers a tormented and imperfect performance, blunting the indisputable power of a name that echoes through the ages. If the representation of an icon Bob Marley: One Love is convincing and driving, it is in the rest that unfortunately leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The exposition of the facts relies entirely on the narration of a protagonist who we never really manage to fully understand. There are so many details to tell, and this dynamic is perceived throughout the entire flow of the main events, with writing that throws a lot of irons into the fire without ever fully managing to focus on its potential.
Bob Marley’s singing rise is certainly fascinating, as are his origins and family problems but… the important and continuous presence of politics in his life is never truly fully explained, depriving viewers less accustomed to the details and realities of a more general understanding. Everything flows quickly on the big screen, trying to insert as much as possible into an experience that perhaps deserves greater attention in this sense. However, it remains important to underline how Bob Marley: One Love still manages to be interesting and exciting, especially thanks to the specific construction of a main character divided between brilliant and unrepeatable musical talent, and a humanity that gives the opportunity to go beyond even the myth itself (Lashana Lynch’s performance as his wife Rita is also fundamental).
This time Reinaldo Marcus Green finds himself describing an artist rich in facets, inseparable from her political and spiritual dimension, but at least without the need to transform her darkest sides into emphatic exaltation. He just needs to glide. Richard Williams was a more than questionable father to his daughters and, at their request, King Richard had to celebrate him. Due to work issues and personal nature, Marley was not a very present father: One Love mentions this parental limit of his and then glosses over it. So, in essence, Bob Marley: One Love is certainly better than Green’s previous film and more successful than other musical biopics that are committed to rewriting the story they tell to make their protagonists make a good impression (I’m looking at you Bohemian Rhapsody). From the trends of contemporary biographical films, Green has learned to limit the running time and to concentrate on a limited and representative time bracket of the life of the artist that he tells, rather than retracing his entire biography.
One Love takes place in just under a decade. The film decides to tell the more or less voluntary exile of Marley in London in the 70s until Marley’s return to Jamaica emerges from a very serious political crisis. A choice that proves ideal for an international audience. By placing its protagonist in the role of the foreigner who conquers the English-speaking record market, Bob Marley: One Love can explain Marley to an audience unaccustomed to the Jamaican and African political and historical issues of the 70s, central to understanding the music and the essence of the musician. In short: Jamaica is on the brink of civil war, Marley is a very famous and discussed musician due to his spiritual belief: Rastafarianism. I believe that the film refers to very often, but completely fails to provide the viewer with the tools and information necessary to understand it. At the start of the film Marley is organizing a free concert for the population, hoping to calm a political situation that has brought his Jamaica to the brink of civil war. This makes him an uncomfortable character, so much so that two armed men enter his house to kill him and stop the concert.
After the attack that injured him, his wife, and a member of his staff, Marley moved to London with his work group, supported by a record company. Here he gets to work on a record that wants to bring his vision of the world to people and that catapults Jamaican reggae into international sounds. One Love tells the story of the birth of one of his most popular and representative albums, Exodus, and what later turned out to be the last years of his life. Struck by a rare and very insidious disease, Marley just has time to see his country pacified, to embark on a much-desired African tour. Playing this thoughtful and ironic Marley is Kingsley Ben-Adir. The actor looks just like the clean-cut Hollywood version of Marley, musician, and man: more handsome, younger, and more cosmopolitan. The protagonist is punctual in his interpretation but lacks that slightly shamanic, slightly ironic, very radical charisma of the original.
The film revolves around him, wrongly giving in to the desire for flashbacks that illustrate the character’s past, and explain his genesis and beginnings. The result is a half-successful film. One Love is a story too fearful to completely give up an introductory and didactic speech regarding the character he tells but at the same time far from grasping its essence. Rastafarianism, his complex love life, the balance between political figure and public figure: everything is more hinted at, shown hesitantly. The main problem is that Marley is a true icon of the 70s, inextricably linked to a radical, at times anarchic, political, and spiritual message. In some ways, the ’70s are the furthest thing there is from the present feeling, which is much closer to conservative decades like the ’50s or jaunty and homologated ones like the ’80s. An era whose icons, in today’s opinion, are more alien than ever, perhaps even more so than then.
Bob Marley – One Love Review: The Last Words
Bob Marley: One Love is a film with unquestionable appeal, thanks to the enormous historical and iconic power of the protagonist himself who acts as the title. The immortal essence of Bob Marley pervades the entire film, translating his voice into the cast’s interpretations, into the choice of facts to narrate, and above all into the conceptual identity of the entire story through images. The iconographic clarity, however, clashes with an underlying speed that instead of enhancing could confuse. In this sense, the film works, but it is not particularly interested in either truly explaining Marley’s vision of the world or telling his music in an incisive way, reviewing a dozen of his most famous hits. That may be enough: sometimes the key is to be satisfied and hope that whoever intercepts this film ends up becoming curious and continues the search on their behalf.
Bob Marley - One Love Movie Review: The Immortal Essence of Bob Marley Pervades the Entire Film - Filmyhype
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Date Created: 2024-02-09 19:44
3.5
Pros
- Kingsley Ben-Adir's interpretation.
- The immortal soundtrack.
- The underlying conceptual identity.
Cons
- A haste that doesn't help explain all the details on the screen.
- The desire to tell everything could affect the main path of the film.
