Bob Marley One Love looks good but often feels disjointed. The story doesn't flow and often it is easy to feel lost. Visually the film is striking and the integration of its artist's music throughout is compelling but narratively One Love falls flat, often not connecting dots between one moment and the next. One Love often feels edited within an inch of its life.
Ben-Adir channels the title character without feeling like a caricature. His chemistry with Lynch is rich and the two together are very compelling to watch. However I often felt the film let them down and didn't get them the chance to truly ground their characters. Because One Love often feels like a series of disconnected vignettes the characters sometimes feel thinly drawn as well. Ben-Adir manages to be the strongest when his character is on stage, truly bringing Marley to life in musical performance. But compared to many other recent films, from Bohemian Rhapsody to I Wanna Dance With Somebody, the musical numbers themselves feel reserved often failing to capture the energy and presence of the real thing.
One Love never truly fails in its attempt to tell a story about one of the 20th century's greatest musicians but it doesn't quite succeed either. Director Green seems to have quite a vision for this story and there are moments of real cinematic brilliance, but they are cut short and cut off from a cohesive whole. One Love exists in a sort of middle ground that is neither bad nor good but does feel just alright.
Bob Marley: One Love
Starring: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Sevana, Tosin Cole, Michael Gandolfini
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Writers: Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin, Reinaldo Marcus Green
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