43
Metascore
36 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60The TelegraphRobbie CollinThe TelegraphRobbie CollinIt’s a gorgeous performance overall – [Ben-Adir's] Marley is so alive to the potential of music as both an art form and cause, it’s as if you can see the creative energy flowing up from the earth through his legs to the tips of his fingers and dreadlocks.
- 60The Hollywood ReporterLovia GyarkyeThe Hollywood ReporterLovia Gyarkye[Ben-Adir] wholly conjures Marley’s charisma while also teasing the musician’s sense of isolation, stemming from a childhood marked by abandonment. His compelling performance enlivens a film that otherwise feels like it’s perpetually struggling to take off.
- 60Rolling StoneDavid FearRolling StoneDavid FearDirector Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard) does his duty by delivering eureka moments, a few greatest-hits sequences, some personal drama. The result is a perfectly functional look at a legend, one that will definitely make you want to put Exodus back into heavy playlist rotation. It’s still not enough.
- 50IndieWireVikram MurthiIndieWireVikram Murthi"One Love” plods through an inert, and-then-this-happened structure that neglects to illuminate or entertain. It’s watchable only because of performances from Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch, who admirably attempt to imbue Bob and Rita Marley, respectively, with genuine life absent from the rest of the film.
- 50VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanThe point of the new biopic mode was to reveal totemic figures in a more complex way. “One Love” flirts with complexity but slides into the banality of hero worship.
- 50Screen DailyTim GriersonScreen DailyTim GriersonThe central performance has a likeable, modest charm, and King Richard director Reinaldo Marcus Green resists the typical, unwieldy cradle-to-grave biopic narrative approach. Yet he fails to breathe much life into this underwhelming drama.
- 40The GuardianPeter BradshawThe GuardianPeter BradshawThis is a vacuum-sealed package of fan-orthodoxy that never takes off. The euphoria and uplift aren’t there.
- 40The IndependentClarisse LoughreyThe IndependentClarisse LoughreyMarley, as played by Kingsley Ben-Adir, is presented as a centrifugal force in Jamaican art, culture and political thought, but the film also threatens to flatten him into just another tortured male genius.
- 40Total FilmNeil SmithTotal FilmNeil SmithCapturing Marley’s essence on screen proves an impossible task in a biopic that veers towards hagiography.
- 25The A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlThe A.V. ClubMurtada ElfadlUnfortunately director Reinaldo Marcus Green, along with his co-screenwriters Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin, waste this opportunity and Marley’s legacy with a rather limp story full of cliches and perplexing choices.