One Love (2003)

Let's get this out of the way first: One Love is about as coherent as a reggae remix of a disco album. Vibey, occasionally catchy, but all over the place. It's the kind of film you put on during a lazy Sunday afternoon when you're not really in the mood to think, and even then it tests your patience in patches.

Set in Jamaica, with a soundtrack that genuinely slaps and scenery lush enough to make you book flights, the film has the raw ingredients for a perfectly serviceable romantic comedy. And there are moments, fleeting ones, where it almost gets there. But "almost" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Kymani Marley and Cherine Anderson are the leads, and they're both easy on the eyes and easy on the ears. Kymani leans on charm and the considerable weight of his family legacy, though his acting range doesn't stretch much beyond "laid-back lover boy." He's likeable enough, but you're never really gripped by his performance. Cherine, though, is the genuine highlight here. The woman can sing, and every time she steps on stage and opens her mouth, the film remembers what it could have been. Her musical performances are the unambiguous high points. You watch her belt it out and think: give her better material and she's a star. It's genuinely frustrating that the script lets her down so badly elsewhere.

Because the plot, bless it, is standard rom-com fare on autopilot. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl through a series of increasingly daft misunderstandings, boy attempts to win her back with declarations of love that land with all the grace of a tripped waiter. There's a thread about chasing dreams in the music industry that never quite grabs hold, and the dialogue swings hard into cringe territory more than once. "You broke my heart… with your lyrics!" is a real line that real people wrote down, agreed upon and filmed. I'll leave that with you.

The pacing doesn't help either. There are stretches where the film moves like a dial-up connection buffering a YouTube video in 2006. You're waiting, waiting, and then something half-decent happens, and then you're waiting again.

And then there's Idris Elba. Look, I like Idris Elba. But his presence here, as Cherine's mysterious record producer boss, is one of the stranger casting decisions I can recall. He appears in maybe six scenes and looks, every single time, like he's been accidentally teleported in from a completely different film. A spy thriller, maybe. Something with better tailoring and higher stakes. His character adds precisely nothing to the narrative. I spent his screen time genuinely puzzled by what series of events led him to this particular set.

If you love Jamaican cinema, and there's plenty worth loving there, you're far better served elsewhere. I've a great deal of affection for The Harder They Come, which crackles with the kind of energy and authenticity that One Love is reaching for and can't quite grasp. Even Rockers captures something rawer and more honest about Jamaican music culture than anything this film manages in its runtime.

One Love isn't without its pleasures. The landscapes are gorgeous, the soundtrack keeps the mood warm, and you can tell everyone involved was giving what they had. Cherine Anderson alone is worth a passing look if you're curious. But as a film, it's frustratingly scattershot: a collection of decent elements that never find a way to stick together properly. You come out of it feeling like you've eaten a meal that smelled fantastic but didn't quite fill you up.

Two stars. Nice postcard. Shame about the script.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2003  | Watched: 2025-07-06

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Ky-Mani Marley: Shottas (2002)
More from Jamaica: Rockers (1978) · Shottas (2002) · The Harder They Come (1972)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More romance: The Eagle (1925) · The Last Picture Show (1971) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928)