It seems inevitable that, sooner or later, every major rock and pop star who ever lived is going to find themselves fictionalised in popular cinema. It would appear to be a winning formula for commercial success: throw in an impoverished childhood, a descent into drug addiction, and a climactic recovery paired with a famous song, and let the box office overflow with money. Over the past 20 years the model has proven successful for some projects – less so for others – but certainly enough times that each year appears to bring its own round of rock biopics vying for an audience. Later in 2024, Studio Canal and Focus Features are rolling the dice on Amy Winehouse biography Back to Black, but first Paramount Pictures are releasing Bob Marley: One Love – dedicated the world’s most successful reggae artist.

One Love picks up Marley’s life – flashbacks notwithstanding – in 1976, where an attempt to hold a peace concert in Kingston, Jamaica, runs afoul due to police interference and an assassination attempt. The film then tracks through key events over the next few years of the singer’s life in London and across Europe.

As with all music biopics, I think audience responses to One Love are going to vary considerably. If one has no interest in Marley’s life or reggae music, a 104-minute drama about both subjects is going to test one’s patience. If one is devoted to Marley too much, and the various ways in which the film truncates, simplifies, and bowdlerises the man’s life and career is likely to frustrate. In between there is arguably a decent enough film here, but ‘decent enough’ does not necessarily translate into ‘really good’.

I think the biggest challenge in adapting a famous person’s life to film is not choosing what to include, but knowing what is better left out. One Love, with a screenplay by Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin, and director Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard), fails to work that out. It seems to have a good political focus, until it doesn’t. It incorporates flashbacks to Marley’s youth, but does so sparingly enough that they get trapped between dragging the narrative on one hand but not providing worthwhile insights on the other. It is a trend repeated through the film. Some elements get too great a focus, while others don’t get enough. One element that works much better than the others is Marley’s Rastafarian faith, which is given an informative and sympathetic showcase throughout the film.

None of this is the fault of the actors. Kingsley Ben-Adir presents an appealing and charismatic Marley – albeit one who does not look very much like the real thing. The supporting cast, including James Norton, Tosin Cole, and Hector Lewis, are uniformly decent. Of particular note is Lashana Lynch as Marley’s wife Rita, making great use of a typically underdeveloped and neglected part. When she does get some focus, it is accompanied by stereotypical and awkward material.

Attempts to make an engaging music drama are largely stymied by Green’s choice to have the entire film performed in an authentic Jamaican patois. It is kind of like Shakespeare: give it time to relax into the vernacular and it is fairly understandable, but any distraction or loss of attention throws you right back out into a failure of comprehension. It is certainly a valid and even commendable creative choice, but it also comes at a price – and that’s popular appeal.

There have been better rock biopics in the past, but there have also been much worse ones. One Love is enjoyable when it works, and less so when it doesn’t. Appreciating the good bits means having patience for the bad.

Bob Marley: One Love opens in Australian cinemas on 14 February 2024.