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Review: ‘One Love’ Unpacks Bob Marley’s Legendary Work and Legacy

Review: ‘One Love’ Unpacks Bob Marley’s Legendary Work and Legacy

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Bob Marley: One Love is an incredible narrative about a legend whose music influences every  part of our lives.

If this film was released last year in time for awards season, it’s likely you may hear Kingsley Ben-Adir (Bob Marley) and Lashana Lynch’s (Rita Marley) names mentioned in the awards conversation. Both actors deliver an impeccable performance in the Paramount pictures film Bob Marley: One Love. Rather than going too far back into the origins of Bob Marley’s story, the narrative takes place at the height of his musical career. There is war and strife happening in Kingston, Jamaica and tragedy strikes when armed men break into Bob Marley’s residence shoot Bob, his manager Don Taylor, and band assistant Louis Griffiths. His wife Rita was shot in the head and miraculously they all survived. Just a couple of days later, Nesta Bob Marley would take to the stage and deliver one of the greatest performances, shortly leaving for London to write songs of peace and unity which are the very songs we still know and celebrate today. 

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green known for films such as Monsters and Men and King Richard, in this narrative he focuses on the music that supported the man as opposed to the man behind the music. While there is a rich storied history to be told about Bob Marley, Green focuses more on the timeline of events surrounding his rise and success as an entertainer. The music in fact serves as a supporting character in the film as well as a frame of reference for where we are in Bob’s history as we inch closer and closer to his final days. The film also scrutinizes the relationship between Bob and Marley in a way we haven’t seen before. Rita Marley, a member of The Wailers who sang backup on many of songs, was an integral part of Bob’s life. We learn that their relationship was also impacted by his success. The film also alternates between the past and present day from when Rita and Bob were teen sweethearts young in love.  How the two fostered that friendship into a budding romance helped set the stage to understand why Rita and Bob had staying power in their marriage. 

The level of determination from Ben-Adir, who plays Bob Marley is pretty spectacular. He didn’t want to audition for this film if the Marley family was not involved.  He also wanted no aspects of this narrative whitewashed. According to press notes from Paramount Studios, Ziggy Marley who worked on the film, he says, “When I met Kingsley, I knew this was a man who could. He had the right spirit, energy, ability, respect and commitment.” The Jamaican patois alone was pretty convincing. So much so that I needed closed captioning during various scenes to understand what was being said. However, if the patois is so thick you don’t understand what is being said, you’re doing it right. And it’s literally my only criticism of the film. 

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Going back to the performances, both Ben-Adir and Lynch radiate respectively in their scenes.  And in one particular scene when an argument ensues between the two of them, it’s electric watching the two of them volley back and forth. It’s like these roles were made for these two actors. The production team certainly got lucky with this pair.

As the story progresses and meanders into areas of Bob’s life it uncovers parts that you wouldn’t expect to see. 

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And while there are some shortcomings and aspects of Bob’s life that aren’t so pleasing, director Reinaldo Marcus Green elects to create more subtle moments out of those indiscretions of Bob’s life rather than magnifying the controversies. Because at the end of the day, Bob’s legacy was always about the music and about bringing peace, harmony and people together through it all. He even risked his own health and ignored telltale signs his body was trying to tell him to continue to write and perform for the people. 

This is a story that is important to tell because it reminds many of us who grew up on Marley’s music how influential and impactful he was on our generation and it offers to a new generation a feature-length lesson on who this man was just in time for Black History Month. 

Bob Marley: One Love premieres in theaters Feb 14th.


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