Bob Marley's One Love Movie Review

Hey guys, it’s been a LONG time but I’m back with some thoughts after watching the newest music-focused biopic that was on Bob Marley. Bob Marley: One Love came out on February 14, 2024 and I personally have been seeing trailers in the theatres for this movie since like November or December so this has been on my watchlist for a while. Before watching the movie, I decided to watch a documentary on him to get a clearer picture on who Bob Marley was before seeing how this movie captures him.

The first thing that I thought was cool was that the movie starts off with an introduction from Bob Marley’s son David “Ziggy” Marley and it was sweet hearing him deliver some kind words about how dedicated he was to making sure this film did his father justice in representing his image and character. He also had a huge impact on deciding who was on set, making sure that there were not only Jamaicans on set to help with shooting the film but also bringing in real musicians to perform instead of actors. I think it’s great to see Bob Marley’s family be so invested in making this film happen, and I hope this becomes more of a precedent for how much involvement a biopic should have from people that knew the subject.

Now, I should point out the fact that the movie does not go over Bob Marley’s entire life. In fact, the movie goes over the period when Bob Marley is the biggest artist in Jamaica with the creation of his ninth album Exodus being the center focus, ending with Bob’s One Love concert to help reunite Jamaica during political unrest. The film does a great job at giving the inspiration for the album, creating a lot of context with the failed assassination attempt on Bob that made him want to exile himself in London to the chemistry he had with his band members as he was recording the album. One important piece of context that the film does a great job in showcasing is Bob’s relationship with the Rastafarian religion. While it doesn’t do enough in explaining the tough upbringing Bob had to face being half white and half black in a racialized Jamaica, I loved seeing how the movie explained how Bob found solace and a community through Rastafarianism.

However, the film does have some issues with explaining all the context that’s brought up in the film. One example would be the characters around Bob calling him “Skipper” and “Nesta”. While those are accurate names that people would call Bob, it would’ve taken me a long while to understand what was being said had I not seen a documentary before. Another big aspect of Bob’s life that I think wasn’t explored enough was the dilemma that surrounded Bob’s discovery of him having cancer and dealing with the decision to amputate his toe. The movie shows Bob clearly being affected by this situation, but it doesn’t explain why he doesn’t do anything about it. In reality, this finding disturbed him a lot but Bob refused to amputate his toe for multiple reasons. One, the Rastafarian religion prohibits anyone from “cutting the flesh”, making Bob feel like he was going against his religion in getting the surgery. Two, Bob really enjoyed playing soccer and dancing, and he was really concerned with his ability to keep balance when doing things he loved doing for himself and for his fans.

As I approached the final quarter of the film, I was really curious to see how this movie was going to end. There’s a scene where the shooter from the failed assassination attempt comes to meet Bob when he comes back to Jamaica for his One Love tour and asks for forgiveness. This scene never actually happened, but I was okay with letting this creative direction because I think it captured the essence of what we see in Bob Marley today. He wouldn’t carry hatred for anyone, even towards someone who tried taking his own life. This scene to me showed how in tune the director and film crew were with Bob Marley’s character as they created a symbolic hypothetical to represent how he treated everyone around him.

Overall the cast and the acting was great all around, especially with the main lead Kingsley Ben-Adir playing a great Bob Marley. I also thought that while the ending of the movie was surprising for me, I was comfortable with seeing it close the way it did. Again, this movie wasn’t intended to showcase a detailed portrayal of the late artist, but instead giving a glimpse in an important moment of time for the reggae star. Finally, the credits scene hit home with some clips of Bob Marley just being himself, constantly showing his smile and demeanor to everyone around him, making you feel like he had love for everyone. All things considered, I’ll give this movie an 8/10. I thank you for reading this and I hope you guys enjoy the movie as much as I did!