In some ways, this movie about reggae legend Bob Marley, which takes in the years 1976-78—after he had already become a superstar—relies on narrative notes that one doesn’t usually find in big budget biopics. It seems more interested in capturing the vibe that gave Marley his distinctive sound and outlook than in cycling through the events of his life. At the same time, it gives short shrift to the historical environment that surrounded him. We see and hear a lot about the political and social strife that forced Marley to leave Jamaica for most of this period after he and his wife are shot by would-be assassins, but almost no explanation of the source of that unrest. Similarly, his popularity is taken for granted, and thus the viewer doesn’t quite understand just how revolutionary an album Exodus was both musically and lyrically, only that he spent an inordinate amount of time trying to sell it to the white music insiders in the UK who wanted him to produce another Natty Dread. The only recognizable through-line is Marley’s marriage, which has its foreseeable ups-and-downs owing to the fact that he and his family had to leave Jamaica (Bob to England, Rita and the kids to Delaware, where her mother lived) and Bob’s serial infidelities and jealousies, but even in that regard the director, Reinaldo Marcus Green, can’t keep his attention focused long enough to make Marley’s connubial life comprehensible.

If the movie retains interest for anyone with more than minimal knowledge of Bob Marley the artist, it’s due to the performances. Kingsley Ben-Adir doesn’t look much like Marley, but he assumes a loose, colloquial manner that feels correct for the themes if not necessarily for the man himself. And Lashana Lynch gives Rita Marley a fiery temperament that suits the rough-and-tumble life she entered into once she moved from backup singer to wife and mother, all the while maintaining a creative partnership with Bob, even if the movie subsequently renders her merely worshipful. The acting sometimes compensates for the raggedy script, which throws incidents at the audience as if they were random clues to a mystery the movie has no intention of solving. Marley’s big tour of Europe is relegated to a hasty, poorly edited montage. The African tour, which in the beginning of the film is presented as a hugely important project, is aborted without so much as a whimper (though he did eventually make it there before he died), thus leaving the One Love Peace Concert, which was supposed to unite all Jamaicans, as the climactic cinematic moment that has to share screen time with Marley dying of cancer, an element that seems almost gratuitously injected into the movie. 

The viewer is occasionally treated to some flashbacks that show how immensely talented Marley was as a teen and his close association with the Wailers, who are treated cursorily despite their own importance as individual musicians. Even Island Records’ Chris Blackwell (James Norton) feels superfluous. A message at the beginning from Marley’s son Ziggy attests to the movie’s “authenticity,” a claim Green struggles to put across with any conviction. 

Opens May 17 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Bob Marley: One Love home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Paramount Pictures