"Bob Marley: One Love" Tells Rita's Story Too

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley and Lashana Lynch as Rita in "One Love"

The biopic "Bob Marley: One Love," co-produced by several members of Marley's family, tells his and his wife Rita's story in a moving way seldom seen on film. 

Producers include Rita Marley, their oldest son David "Ziggy" (whose nickname means "little spliff"), and daughter Cedella (a cannabis cookbook author and musician). Stephen Marley, the couple's third child, was the film's music supervisor. Also involved as an executive producer, along with Brad Pitt, was Orly Agai Marley, a music industry executive who is married to Ziggy. 

The film briefly touches on Marley's humble beginnings, and quickly jumps to 1976, when he planned a free "Smile Jamaica" concert to bring together Jamaica's political factions that had seen escalated violence between them. As the film depicts, Rita, Bob, and his manager Don Taylor were shot and wounded in Marley's home two days before the concert. Rita's dreadlocks protected her brain from the bullet, and she recovered from her serious injuries, while Bob sustained minor wounds to his chest and arm, and the concert proceeded. 

Rita, played by Lashana Lynch, is a powerhouse life and musical partner to Bob, even while he "keeps company" elsewhere while she stays home raising his kids, some by other women. She and the other two I-Threes (Judy Mowat and Marcia Griffiths) lended their backing voices to Bob's vision and made it soar. The scene where Rita brings Bob back down to Earth is about the best and truest acting I have ever seen.  

In flashback, it is revealed that Rita introduced Bob to Rastafarianism, and he is shown receiving religious instruction and being initiated into smoking the holy herb. Ganja thereafter is treated nonchalantly, in the music studio or elsewhere, as part of the lifestyle, without comment. 

After the "Smile Jamaica" concert, Bob sends his family to the US to be out of target range, and travels to London. There, after being busted for a small quantity of marijuana, he envisions a bigger sound to his music, along with a bigger mission: to bring peace to and unity to Jamaica and spread the gospel of Rastafari. As the film tells it, he recalls the Rasta holy man teaching him that his name Nesta means messenger while in his London jail cell. 

Rita and the I Threes join him in London and the result is the album "Exodus," which became a worldwide bestseller and brought Reggae music, and its sacrament, to the planet. The album "Kaya" (slang for marijuana) was also produced in London. 

Of course, the music in the film is wonderful; I wish I had caught it in a theatre with a good sound system. I would have liked to have seen (the real) Bob perform in the end, at the second Jamaican concert that ended the film and might have been its crescendo. Instead, we see a soundless montage of Marley performing, dancing in his wild way, and bringing together political leaders onstage. 

I am sure some will criticize "One Love" for overly lionizing Marley, even while showing his flaws, but watching him in the film dying in his 30s from the effects of cancer, it was hard not to see him as a martyr and get swept up in the music, and the message. When he sings "Redemption Song" for Rita and she pronounces him ready, you know that he will die soon. The song appeared on his final album, "Uprising." 

For his role as Bob Marley, British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir immersed himself in Jamaican Patois for over a year. Asked by Gayle King if he smoked weed in preparation for the film, he replied no, but that, "I eat it sometimes." The film is told in flashback, which adds a bit to the confusion in following the plot along with the patois. An end title states that Bob Marley died in 1981, aged 36; Ben-Adir celebrated his 37th birthday during filming.

Rita has kept the memory and the message alive, and recently celebrated her 75th birthday. 

According to IMDB, "Bob Marley: One Love" was rated NC16 in Singapore because of the anti-drug law and media censorship in Singapore. But it's viewable in the US (currently on Amazon Prime).