Bob Marley: One Love is a biographical drama directed and co-written by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) that features an immense portrayal of Bob Marley by Kingsley Ben-Adir. One Love benefits so much from how transformative and engaging a performance Kingsley’s is that the flaws in the film’s storytelling almost just fade away.

 

Bob Marley: One Love is based on the life of Bob Marley, exploring his rise to stardom in the 70’s to his death in the early 80’s. Though it struggles to an extent in how successfully it conveys the magnitude of the impact Marley made on popular music in such a short amount of time, it has successes in other ways.

 

Bob’s and the Wailers music is central to how the film navigates Marley’s life, to the extent that it takes a little dramatic license in imagining what the origins of some of the famous songs were to fit in with the film’s telling of Marley’s life and backstory. The film can also feel somewhat choppy at times in how it travels through Bob Marley’s life, largely due to editing choices. Occasionally incongruent scenes follow each other without lead in or explanation or exposition other than if you had prior knowledge of Bob’s history.

 

However, Kingsley Ben-Adir is so thoroughly captivating as Marley that those flaws in the screenplay or filmmaking fall away when One Love has him sing. The supporting cast across the board are all excellent, especially Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley.

The production design is also top-notch, with One Love really feeling like it is in and of the 1970’s setting it explores

 

Bob Marley: One Love is made entirely compelling by the committed and captivating performance of Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley. With the music behind him, Ben-Adir is magnetic.