Michael Gandolfini Archives

Review: ‘Bob Marley: One Love,’ starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Tosin Cole, Anthony Welsh, Michael Gandolfini, Umi Myers and Nadine Marshall

February 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch in “Bob Marley: One Love” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1976 to 1978 (with flashbacks to the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s), in Jamaica and other parts of the world, the dramatic biopic “Bob Marley: One Love” features a predominantly black cast of characters (with some white people) portraying people connected in some way to reggae superstar Bob Marley.

Culture Clash: Bob Marley is plagued by threats of violence from people who see him as a political figure or a musical rival; a troubled marriage to his backup singer Rita Marley; and childhood memories of being abandoned by his father.

Culture Audience: “Bob Marley: One Love” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Bob Marley and celebrity biopics, but this music-oriented drama hits a lot of the same wrong notes.

Kingsley Ben-Adir in “Bob Marley: One Love” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“Bob Marley: One Love” alternates between being bland and sloppy. The end result is that this disappointing biopic looks like a boring parody of a music legend’s life story. The dreadlock wigs look too fake and are a distraction. Although some of the cast members seem to be doing their best to salvage this mishandled misfire, “Bob Marley: One Love” is torpedoed by jumbled direction and a messy screenplay. Bob Marley, the pioneering reggae legend from Jamaica, died of skin cancer (acral lentiginous melanoma) in 1981, at the age of 36. Unfortunately, this biopic does not do full justice to his influential legacy.

Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, “Bob Marley: One Love” was co-written by Green, Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers and Zach Baylin. Green and Baylin’s previous film is 2021’s “King Richard,” the Oscar-winning biopic starring Will Smith as Richard Williams, father of tennis legends Serena Williams and Venus Williams. Green directed “King Richard,” and Baylin received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for the movie. Whereas “King Richard” had an easy-to-follow timeline told in chronological order, “Bob Marley: One Love” has a scrambled timeline that will be confusing to many viewers who are unfamiliar with Bob Marley’s story.

Clearly, these filmmakers are capable of making award-worthy movies. What went wrong with this Bob Marley biopic? It starts with the screenplay, which might have suffered from “too many cooks in the kitchen” syndrome. It might explain why the screenplay seems to be watered-down and devoid of anything truly electrifying. (For the purposes of this review, the real Bob Marley will be referred to as Bob Marley, while the Bob Marley character in the movie will be referred to as Bob.)

“Bob Marley: One Love” has an annoying tendency to show Bob Marley as a successful adult musician (played by Kingsley Ben-Adir) relying heavily on flashbacks to his childhood and teen years whenever the adult Bob wants to get inspiration to write a song. (Nolan Collignon portrays Bob as a child of about 6 or 7 years old. Quan-Dajai Henriques portrays Bob as a teenager.) Based on the loads of information available about the real Bob Marley, he clearly did not draw inspiration mainly from his childhood memories.

In fact, Bob Marley’s life philosophy was to focus on the present and not dwell on the past. It seems disrespectful and very gimmicky for the “Bob Marley: One Love” filmmakers to thrown in hazy-looking, dreamlike sequences of Bob experiencing the trauma of being insulted and abandoned by his father as a child before he writes a song.

Bob Marley (whose birth name was Robert Nesta Marley) was born in the small town of Nine Mile, Jamaica, to a white British plantation overseer named Norval Sinclair Marley and a black Jamaican named Cedella Malcolm, who worked on the plantation. In “Bob Marley: One Love,” Norval is portrayed by Daniel Melville Jr., while Cedella is portrayed by Nadine Marshall.

In real life, Norval Marley and Cedella Marley were married. Norval died when Bob Marley was 10 years old. Cedella then married an American civil servant named Edward Booker, changed her last name to Booker, and had two other sons from this marriage: Richard and Anthony Booker. Cedella also moved to the United States because of this marriage. Edward, Richard and Anthony are not in this movie.

In “Bob Marley: One Love,” Bob’s childhood is depicted as Norval (dressed in a British military uniform, because the real Norval claimed to be a veteran of the British Royal Marines) being an absentee father who rejected and abandoned Bob. Cedella was then left to raise Bob as a single mother. And because her relationship with Bob’s stepfather Edward Booker isn’t in the movie, “Bob Marley: One Love” gives the impression that Bob didn’t have a father figure in his life during his childhood and teen years.

The flashbacks to Bob’s teen years also seem superficial and not entirely accurate. Bob and his teenage sweetheart Rita (played by Nia Ashi) form an emotional bond over feeling like outcasts in their school. They both talk about being bullied and teased by their peers because of the color of their skin: Bob (who called himself or Rob or Robbie back then) got flack for being “too light-skinned,” and Rita for being “too dark-skinned.”

Bob and Rita share a love of music, and she eventually becomes a backup singer in his band. Rita is also the person who introduces Bob to Rastafarianism. The movie has the expected scenes of Bob and many other Rastafarians smoking marijuana.

Bob’s earliest days as a musician are shown fleetingly and without much substance— unless you think it’s fascinating to see a teenage Bob Marley and his band show up at a rehearsal/recording studio space and have the owner wave a gun at them to prevent them from going inside because he thinks the band looks too young to be professional musicians. The owner then changes his mind when he hears Bob sing. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Years later, when Bob and Rita (played by Lashana Lynch) are married parents and experiencing Bob’s growing fame, the rosy glow of their teenage romance has long since dimmed and given way to the harsh realities of his infidelities, including having children with other women, with Rita being a caregiver for most of these out-of-wedlock children. This fact is mentioned quickly during an argument that Bob and Rita have outside a music industry party in Europe.

The argument starts because Bob, like most cheaters, is irrationally jealous and accusatory over suspicions that his main partner is being unfaithful too. Bob has a violent temper and is seen lashing out at any man whom Bob thinks might be sexually involved with Rita. The movie doesn’t go into further details about Bob’s extramarital affairs. There are a few scenes where Rita glares angrily at women who are hanging around like groupies. “Bob Marley: One Love” is so poorly written and clumsily directed, these marital problems are dropped in the movie like snippets of a soap opera and then ignored.

“Bob Marley: One Love” is mainly just a series of scenes where he has conflicts and dilemmas over whether or not to perform the One Love Peace Concert (which took place at in 1978, at the National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica); how to protect his family from threats of violence; and creative control over his music. The majority of the film takes place from 1976 to 1978, with the One Love Peace Concert set up as the movie’s expected climax, just like the Live Aid concert was for the 2018 Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Bob Marley: One Love” shows how Bob was getting pressure from various people with different agendas on whether or not to do the concert, which was during a time of enormous political upheaval and gang violence in Jamaica. The people who were against the concert thought that the crowd would be too rowdy, or that Bob was trying to turn the concert into a political rally. Bob is shown repeatedly saying that the concert was not a political event, although certain people refused to see it any other way.

Michael Manley, a left-wing liberal who was Jamaica’s prime minister at the time, was in a heated political feud with Edward Seaga, a right-wing conservative who would later become prime minister of Jamaica in 1980. Manley (who was Jamaica’s prime minister from 1972 to 1980 and from 1989 to 1992) and Seaga (who was Jamaica’s prime minister from 1980 to 1989) are mentioned multiple times in “Bob Marley: One Love,” but are not portrayed by actors in this movie, which only uses archival footage of these two former leaders of Jamaica.

In real life, Bob Marley and some adult members of his family and entourage were shot during a home invasion in Kingston, on December 3, 1976, a few months after the release of his album “Rastaman Vibration.” The movie depicts the home invasion as gang violence from two young thugs who were sent to assassinate Bob Marley, out of some real or perceived insult that Bob Marley gave to their gang leader. This home invasion is depicted in a very haphazard way, early on in the film.

Shots are fired (with Bob shown in slow motion, like a deer caught in headlights), and the two gunmen escape after shooting Rita, who was sitting in a parked care outside the house. One minute, Bob is swaggering next to a severely wounded Rita, as she’s being wheeled on a gurney into a hospital emergency room. The next minute, he’s visiting her in the hospital and feeling enormously guilty, since he was the main target of the home invasion. (Rita and Bob eventually decide that she and their children will temporarily live with Bob’s mother Cedella in Delaware, while he goes to London to record his next album.) And then a few scenes later, Rita is back on tour with Bob, and her difficult medical recovery is quickly glossed over in the movie.

As for Bob’s skin cancer, it is portrayed in the movie as warning signs that he ignores. Bob has a toe that looks infected and isn’t healing, but he delays going to a doctor to find out the cause and to get medical treatment. By the time that Bob finds out that he has cancer, it’s too late. The movie doesn’t want to bother with showing the depressing downward health spiral of him being in the final stages of cancer. Considering the crass way that the movie fabricated how Bob Marley used the attempted murder of himself and his loved ones as the inspiration for the chorus of “Three Little Birds,” you get the feeling that if the “Bob Marley: One Love” filmmakers could’ve gotten away with fabricating a Bob Marley cancer songwriting scene, they would’ve done that too.

And what about the music that Bob Marley created? There are some scenes of Bob recording music and rehearsing with his band the Wailers. Unless you’re a Bob Marley and the Wailers expert, you probably won’t remember all of the members of the band as they are presented in this movie, because the movie makes them look mostly generic. The exceptions are backup singer Rita and Junior Marvin (played by David Kerr), a Jamaican British guitarist who also worked with Stevie Wonder. Junior’s audition gets a longer-than-necessary scene in the movie. The other members of the Wailers who are depicted in the movie are Seeco Patterson (played by Stefan Wade), Family Man Barrett (played by Aston Barrett Jr.), Tyrone Downie (played by Tosin Cole), Carly Barrett (played by Hector “Roots” Lewis), Antonio “Gillie” Gilbert (played by Gawaine “J-Summa” Campbell), Judy Mowatt (played by Anna-Sharé Blake), Neville Garrick (played by Sheldon Shepherd) and Don Kinsey (played by Andrae Simpson).

Other musicians who worked with Bob Marley are given the bare minimum of screen time in the movie. Rita mentions to Bob how he drove “Peter and Bunny” out of the Wailers by being too much of a dictator. Of course, music aficionados will know that she’s talking about Peter Tosh (played by Alexx A-Game) and Bunny Wailer, also known as Bunny Livingston (played by Abijah “Naki Wailer” Livingston), but these musicians’ contributions to the Wailers are nearly erased in the movie.

Because “Bob Marley: One Love” was officially sanctioned by the Bob Marley estate, the best parts of the movie are those that show Bob Marley’s music being performed. Rita Marley, son Ziggy Marley and daughter Cedella Marley are among the producers of this movie. Bob Marley’s best-known hits are all in the film, including “One Love,” “Get Up, Stand Up,” “No Woman, No Cry,” “Three Little Birds,” “Jamming” and “Simmer Down.” And the concert scenes are very good, although they still looked very staged.

This over-staging of scenes is a huge problem in “Bob Marley: One Love,” which never lets you forget that you’re just watching a lot of fabrication. For example, there’s a scene where Bob is driving a car, with his underage sons Ziggy (played by Xavier Woolry) and Stephen (played by Mekhai Newell) as passengers. When Ziggy and Stephen express concern about another home invasion, he says in a sing-song voice, “Don’t worry ’bout a thing. Everything is going to be all right,” which is the famous chorus for “Three Little Birds.” The movie makes it look like this home-invasion trauma inspired him to come up with those lyrics. In reality, the song was inspired by three birds that used to fly near his home.

Another example of the movie’s over-staging and fabrication is in a scene that takes place in 1977, when Bob is in London to record his landmark “Exodus” album. He’s jogging in a park, when all of sudden, two rival Jamaican gang leaders—Claudie Massop (played by Brian Todd Boucher) and Bucky Marshall (played by Cornelius Orlando Grant)—suddenly show up in the park together to tell Bob that these two rivals have now called a truce. This scene looks “only in a movie” phony.

How did Claudie and Bucky know where to find Bob at that exact same moment in this very large park? Did they travel all the way from Jamaica together and decide to stalk him? And why couldn’t they just relay that message through a more convenient way? It’s because a fake-looking scene like this had to be created for the movie for dramatic purposes.

Another fake-looking scene is the debate over the album cover for “Exodus,” which was released in June 1977. In the movie, the original album cover was presented to Bob as an average-looking band photo. Bob wasn’t happy with it, so the album cover designer came up with the minimalist album cover (solid gold with the title “Exodus” in red letters) that ended up being the cover that was released. The movie depicts it as the cover that Bob wants, but pompous and opinionated publicist Howard Bloom (played by Michael Gandolfini) thinks it’s the wrong choice because he believes the cover isn’t very marketable.

Howard is portrayed as a music executive who thinks he knows better than Bob on how reggae should be marketed to audiences outside of Jamaica. Island Records founder Chris Blackwell (played by James Norton), who signed Bob Marley and the Wailers, is portrayed as someone who sometimes disagrees with Bob but generally trusts Bob’s vision. In real life, Chris Blackwell was known for his larger-than-life personality in the music industry, but you wouldn’t know if from the trite way that he’s portrayed in this move.

“Bob Marley: One Love” gives only surface-level depictions of race relations between black people and white people. The movie has an extensive section devoted to Bob Marley’s 1977 breakthrough tour of Europe, where nearly all of the audience members were white. In the movie, Bob’s interactions with white people are mostly in business meetings or at music industry functions, where he is treated like a star whom some rich and famous people wanted to latch onto because they thought Bob Marley was trendy at the time. The only real racial tension or hostility expressed in the movie is when a Rastafarian spiritual mentor named Elder Lewis (played by Mutabaruka) tells newlyweds Bob and Rita that Rastafarians don’t worship white gods and makes this comment about the Rastafarian chief deity: “Our God is black.”

Ben-Adir and Lynch give capable performances as Bob and Rita, even when they are given subpar dialogue. The movie only shows flattering portrayals of them as parents, although Rita (in the movie’s biggest argument scene with Bob) expresses resentment that she has most of the burden of being the children’s caretaker, while Bob is often away doing whatever he wants. “Bob Marley: One Love” is like a muddled and incomplete mosaic of Bob Marley. For a better and more insightful look at Bob Marley’s life, watch the 2012 documentary “Marley” instead.

Paramount Pictures will release “Bob Marley: One Love” in U.S. cinemas on February 14, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 19, 2024. “Bob Marley: One Love” will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD on May 28, 2024.

Review: ‘Landscape With Invisible Hand,’ starring Asante Blackk, Kylie Rogers and Tiffany Haddish

August 19, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Landscape With Invisible Hand”

Directed by Cory Finley

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2036 to 2037, in an unnamed U.S. city, the sci-fi film “Landscape With Invisible Hand” (based on the 2017 book of the same name) features an African American and white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After an alien invasion leaves most people on Earth destitute and desperate for money, a teenage aspiring painter artist agrees to fake a romance with a classmate, in order to be paid to livestream their relationship, but problems occur when the teens are sued by an alien for fraud.

Culture Audience: “Landscape With Invisible Hand” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based, as well as movies that have commentary about social inequalities and cashing in on voyeurism.

Tiffaany Haddish and Asante Blackk in “Landscape With Invisible Hand” (Photo by Lynsey Weatherspoon/Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures)

“Landscape With Invisible Hand” is a mixed bag of quirky science fiction that sometimes gets boring and repetitive. However, the story is presented in a memorable cinematic way, and the performances do justice to the source material. “Landscape With Invisible Hand” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The movie’s title is explained in the movie’s last scene.

Written and directed by Cory Finley, “Landscape With Invisible Hand” is based on M.T. Anderson’s 2017 novel of the same name. It’s a movie with a low-key satirical tone that might not be appreciated by anyone expecting more comedic material. There’s some pointed commentary (in a “show, don’t tell” way) about colonialism, social class prejudices and the role that technology plays in people making money off of their private lives. Some of the commentary is right on target, while other commentary is a little too tame and should have been more impactful.

“Landscape With Invisible Hand” (which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city from the years 2036 to 2037) is told primarily from the perspective of 17-year-old introvert Adam Campbell (played by Asante Blackk), a very talented painter artist who wants to do his art for a living. In this story, Earth has been taken over by outer-space aliens called Vuvv, which have tentacles on their heads and have hands that look like oar paddles. When the Vuvv creatures talk, they rub their hands together, which makes a sound similar to sandpaper being rubbed together. The Vuvv creatures can speak human languages, but they do not have human emotions and are fascinated by anything that shows human emotions.

The Vuvv invasion of Earth has left almost everyone on Earth desolate and desperate for money, because the Vuvv creatures want humans to be at their financial mercy. People aren’t wandering around looking dirty and starving and dressed in raggedy clothing. The desperation is more subtle: People in this area have enough to eat and drink, and institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.) are still running smoothly, but the cost of basic living has become increasingly too much for most of the population.

There’s a constantly hovering Vuvv “mothership” in the sky where some people have chosen to live, in order get “elite” and “special” treatment from the Vuvv creatures. But choosing to live on this enormous spaceship means that the selected humans often have to leave loved ones behind on Earth. There are signs of the apocalypse everywhere, including areas that look they were hit by a bomb. At one point in the movie, Adam tells a new classmate who becomes his love interest that he had a chance to live in this mothership, but he chose not to go.

Adam lives in a middle-class but increasingly run-down house with his mother Beth Campbell (played by Tiffany Haddish), a lawyer who can’t find work as a lawyer and has been struggling to pay the bills with the low-paying job she currently has. In this post-apocalyptic society, Beth is considered very lucky to have a job and a home, since many people on Earth are currently unemployed and have lost or are close to losing their homes. Adam’s quiet younger sister Natalie (played Brooklynn MacKinzie), who’s about 12 or 13 years old, also lives in the household.

Beth’s husband (played by William Jackson Harper), a real estate developer who doesn’t have a first name in the movie, left the family to find better job opportunities on the West Coast. Mr. Campbell eventually stopped keeping in touch with his wife and kids, who have all assumed that he abandoned them. They have no idea where he currently lives.

The main thing that gives Adam comfort during this bleak existence is his passion for painting. He usually paints portraits and landscapes on various surfaces. Throughout the movie, several paintings are shown (most of them are Adam’s paintings) which describe the title of the painting, the type of paint used, the type of surface and the year that the painting was completed. Natalie’s source of comfort is tending to a garden in the family’s empty backyard pool. Natalie is a very underdeveloped and forgettable character in this movie.

At school, Adam has a homeroom teacher named Mr. Stanley (played by John Newberg), who announces to the class that he is going to be replaced by an artificial intelligence hologram. Almost everyone on the teaching staff will be laid off for the same reason—all because the Vuvv creatures want it that way. It’s another example of how the Vuvv creatures abuse their power.

During an art class, Adam meets a new student during her first day at this school. Her name is Chloe Marsh (played by Kylie Rogers), who is smart but very jaded. Chloe is about the same age as Adam. She doesn’t take the art class seriously at all—when the class is asked to draw a portrait of a fellow student, she draws a giant penis instead—but Chloe and Adam have an instant rapport. She compliments Adam on his artistic talent. Adam is immediately attracted to her in a romantic way.

Chloe’s first day at school is jolted by a tragedy. While she, Adam and several people are outside in the front of the school, they see Mr. Stanley walk outside and shoot himself. The suicide is talked about later, but in a way implying that human suicides have become so common in this Vuvv-controlled world, suicide is not as shocking as it was before the Vuvv takeover of Earth.

Chloe tells Adam that she and her widowed and disillusioned father Mr. Marsh (played by Josh Hamilton) and angry older brother Hunter Marsh (played by Michael Gandolfini), who’s in his late teens, are temporarily homeless. Adam is eager to impress Chloe, so he invites the Marsh family to stay in the basement of his family’s house. At first, Beth thinks the Marsh family will only be staying for a few days. But then, over dinner in the family home, Adam tells Beth that he invited the Marsh family to stay as long as they need.

This news does not go down well with Beth, but she has enough compassion to not kick the Marsh family out of the house. Mr. Marsh is unemployed, but he promises Beth that he will start paying her rent when he finds a job. Meanwhile, Adam’s attraction to Chloe begins to grow. He is so infactuated with her, he paints a portrait of her and gives it to Chloe as a gift. She is very flattered, and there are indications she’s starting to be romantically attracted to Adam too.

One of the quirks about this new existence after the Vuvv invasion is that humans on Earth now have new types of food to consume. This food is usually jelly-like versions of solid foods that humans used to enjoy before the invasion. Solid foods in their original forms are considered luxurious delicacies. Hunter often whines and complains about the food that he has to eat.

Chloe eventually gets the idea to make money by getting involved in a livestreaming program called Courtship Broadcast, where people agree to livestream their love lives for the amusement of the Vuvv creatures. Courtship Broadcast works much like today’s social media: The more followers/subscribers someone has, the more potential there is to make money. People who livestream on Courtship Broadcast put detachable nodes on their foreheads to activate the livestream. When they want to interrupt or stop the livestream, they can remove the nodes from their foreheads.

Chloe convinces Adam to join Courtship Broadcast so that they can pretend to date each other and make money from it, in order to financially help their families. Adam reluctantly agrees. He instinctively knows that things could go wrong in faking this relationship. Chloe and Adam tell their families about the plan to fabricate a romance for Courtship Broadcast money.

But after a while, it starts to bother Adam that all the romantic talk and actions that Chloe is showing for Courtship Broadcast aren’t genuine, because she’s only doing it for the money. Adam wants their romance to be real. Chloe has genuine affectionate feelings for Adam, but the movie makes it look like he’s in love with her and wants a serious relationship, while she just likes him a lot and wants a “friend with benefits” situation.

Eventually, one of the Vuvv creatures named Vuvv Shirley—who is watching Adam and Chloe’s “romance” and is a Courtship Broadcast subscriber—figures out that Adam and Chloe are faking it. Chole and Adam are summoned to Vuvv Shirley’s office, where she informs the two teens that she’s suing them for fraud for “millions” in money—enough for the Campbell and Marsh families to be “in debt for six generations.”

Vuvv Shirley offers a solution that involves some bizarre role-playing scenarios where a Vuvv arrrives to live in the Campbell household. Without giving away too much information, these scenarios require Beth to be passive and subservient to this Vuvv creature. And the reaction from outspoken and independent Beth is exactly what you think it is.

Meanwhile, there are some other power dynamics at play that cause tensions in the household. Even though Beth has generously given the Marsh family a place to live (and eventually, Mr. Marsh starts paying rent), Mr. Marsh and Hunter act entitled and privileged toward Beth. A big argument erupts when Mr. Marsh and Hunter use Beth’s computer without her permission and insult her when she politely tells them to next time ask permission to use any of her things.

There’s an unspoken racial subtext to the hostility that Mr. Marsh and Hunter express toward Beth, but the movie seems afraid to fully acknowledge why there is this resentment. Mr. Marsh tells Beth that he’s not used to being in this situation of being financially poor and living in someone else’s house. What he doesn’t say out loud is that it also makes him uncomfortable to be living in a house with a house where a black woman has more money and power than he does.

Mr. Marsh also shows subtle but noticeable racial discomfort over Adam and Chloe kissing, even if it’s for the Courtship Broadcast. Mr. Marsh seems afraid of Chloe developing real romantic feelings for Adam, who is obviously starting to fall in love with Chloe. Mr. Marsh even describes Adam as a “loser,” even though Adam has never shown any indication that he’s a bad person or is forcing Chloe to do anything that she doesn’t want to do. (Remember, it was her idea to fake the romance for money.)

“Landscape With Invisible Hand” seems to want to say a lot about the lengths that certain people will go to make money and what that might do to someone’s pride, ego or dignity. Some of the scenarios get a little tedious. It’s constantly shown that the Vuvv creatures are manipulative control freaks, but whatever mayhem and disruption they’re causing, it doesn’t seem to be doing the Vuvv much good either. Who wants to be in charge of a planet that’s in disarray caused by the very entities that invaded the planet?

There’s a scene where Chloe and Adam are driven by golf cart to an abandoned golf course. The driver (played by Vishwas) tells the two teens that he used to be a surgeon, but he gets much more money from the Vuvv creatures to be a human driver, which is considered a “status symbol” instead of having a hologram driver. Aside from showing that the Vuvvs use humans as pawns for the Vuvvs’ amusement, this anecdote doesn’t serve much a purpose in the story.

What isn’t explained in “Landscape With Invisible Hand” is why the billions of people on Earth seem to have given up on trying to get back control of their lives from the Vuvv. There are never any references to what Earth’s leaders or even leaders of the United States have done about this alien takeover. Adam’s painting talent leads to pivotal part of the movie, but the conclusion of that part of the storyline kind of falls flat.

What makes the movie interesting are the lead performances by Blackk and Rogers, who adeptly convey that despite all the upheaval in the lives of Adam and Chloe, they still want to live their lives in the way that teenagers usually did before this Vuvv invasion. It’s not quite a rebellion against the Vuvv, but it’s a way for Adam and Chloe to forge their own paths and their own identities when they are brink of adulthood. In a world where the Vuvvs are trying to control people though money, the one thing that the Vuvvs can’t control are human emotions.

“Landscape With Invisible Hand” is not the type of movie where the teens have a breakthrough friendship bond with a mysterious alien. It’s also not a post-apocalyptic movie where people are living like feral animals. It’s a movie that gets viewers to think about personal values and staying true to oneself when it might be easier or financially rewarding to be fake about it all.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures released “Landscape With Invisible Hand” in select U.S. cinemas on August 18, 2023.

Review: ‘The Many Saints of Newark,’ starring Alessandro Nivola, Leslie Odom Jr., Jon Bernthal, Corey Stoll, Michael Gandolfini, Ray Liotta and Vera Farmiga

January 8, 2022

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Corey Stoll, Joey Diaz, Vera Farmiga, Jon Bernthal, Michael Gandolfini, Gabriella Piazza, Alessandro Nivola and an unidentified actress in “The Many Saints of Newark” (Photo by Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. Pictures)

“The Many Saints of Newark”

Directed by Alan Taylor

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1967 to 1972, in New Jersey and New York, the mobster drama film “The Many Saints of Newark” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class involved in mafia activities.

Culture Clash: Members of the Moltisanti and Soprano families of “The Sopranos” TV series rise through the ranks of the Italian American mafia in New Jersey while having conflicts with each other, as an underage Tony Soprano is groomed to learn the family’s crime business.

Culture Audience: “The Many Saints of Newark” will appeal primarily to fans of “The Sopranos” and predictable mobster movies with good acting.

Leslie Odom Jr. and Alessandro Nivolo in “The Many Saints of Newark” (Photo by Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. Pictures)

As a movie prequel to “The Sopranos” series, “The Many Saints of Newark” disappoints by not making Tony Soprano the main character. However, the cast members are so talented, they elevate this typical mobster drama. You don’t have to be familiar with “The Sopranos” to understand “The Many Saints of Newark,” although the movie is more enjoyable to watch for anyone who has a basic level of knowledge about “The Sopranos,” which won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards during its 1999 to 2007 run on HBO. At times, “The Many Saints of Newark” looks more like it’s trying to be a Martin Scorsese mafia film than a “Sopranos” prequel.

Directed by Alan Taylor and written by “The Sopranos” showrunner David Chase and Lawrence Konner, “The Many Saints of Newark” opens with a scene of a graveyard that shows the gravestone of Christopher Moltisanti, Tony Soprano’s troubled protégé, whom Tony killed in Season 6 of the series. Christopher (voiced by Michael Imperioli) is briefly a “voice from the dead” narrator to explain to viewers that this story will go back in time (from 1967 to 1972), to show how Christopher’s father Dickie Moltisanti (played by Alessandro Nivola) became a mafia mentor to Tony.

It’s not the ghost of Christopher who really haunts “The Saints of Newark.” It’s the ghost of James Gandolfini, the actor who made Tony Soprano an iconic character in “The Sopranos.” Gandolfini died in 2013, at the age of 51. Any TV show or movie that’s about “The Sopranos” saga has a huge void to fill without Gandolfini playing the role of the adult Tony Soprano. It’s a void that really can’t be filled, but “The Many Saints of Newark” makes an attempt to create another “larger than life” mafia character for “The Sopranos” saga, but it’s extremely difficult for any “Sopranos” character to overshadow Tony and his legacy.

“The Many Saints of Newark” is about Dickie (Tony’s first mentor) more than anyone else. The movie reveals the family tree in bits and pieces for any viewer who doesn’t know the family background. Dickie’s father is Aldo “Hollywood Dick” Moltisanti (played by Ray Liotta), who has an identical twin brother named Salvatore “Sally” Moltisanti (also played by Liotta), who is in prison for murder. Dickie is a cousin of Carmela De Angelis (played by Lauren DiMario), Tony’s high-school sweetheart who would later become his wife. Even though Dickie is not related to the Sopranos by blood, he becomes so close to Tony, Dickie is eventually referred to as Tony’s “uncle.”

Tony’s parents are Giovanni Francis “Johnny Boy” Soprano (played by Jon Bernthal) and Livia Soprano (played by Vera Farmiga), who have very different personalities. Johnny is gregarious and fun-loving, while Livia is uptight and judgmental. During the five years that this movie takes place, Tony is seen when he’s 11 years old (played by William Ludwig) and when he’s 16 years old (played by Michael Gandofini, the real-life son of James Gandolfini).

Tony, his parents and his two younger sisters live in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey. Tony’s sisters Janice and Barbara are doted on by their parents, while Tony feels negelcted in comparison. (Mattea Conforti portrays Janice as a child, Alexandra Intrator portrays Janice as teenager, and Lexie Foley portrays Barbara as a child.)

A family party celebrating Janice’s confirmation in the Catholic religion shows how much Tony feels like an ignored outsider in his own family. Dickie is one of the people who’s a regular at the Soprano family gatherings because members of the Soprano family and the Moltiscanti family work for the DiMeo crime family that rules this part of New Jersey. It’s at Janice’s confirmation party that Tony sees his father Johnny and Dickie talking about some mafia business. Tony is intrigued.

Tony is intelligent, but his academic grades don’t reflect that intelligence because Tony doesn’t really like school. It’s the first sign that he’s not comfortable with authority figures or following rules. Livia is overly critical of Tony and thinks he’s not as smart as Tony actually is. At one point, Tony’s teacher Mrs. Jarecki (played by Talia Balsam) tells Livia that Tony is intelligent and has leadership potential. Livia’s reaction is to say that there’s a difference between being smart and being a smart aleck.

Johnny’s older brother Corrado John “Junior” Soprano Jr. (played by Corey Stoll) is more stoic and serious-minded than Johnny. (Dominic Chianese played Junior in “The Sopranos” TV series.) Johnny and Junior eventually have a rivalry over who will rise the highest in the DiMeo crime family. But when this story takes place, Dickie’s father Hollywood Dick has more seniority than Junior and Johnny.

Much of the family drama in “The Saints of Newark” is about the tensions between Dickie and his father. Hollywood Dick abused his first wife (Dickie’s mother), who is now deceased. It’s implied that she was killed by her husband, who got away with the crime. Dickie’s father was abusive to him too when Dickie was a child. Dickie’s childhood is not shown in flashbacks, but it’s described in conversations. As an adult, Dickie has a love/hate relationship with his father.

In 1967, Hollywood Dick arrives back in Newark from a trip to Italy and has someone with him: a much-younger Italian woman named Giuseppina (played by Michela De Rossi), whom Hollywood Dick impulsively married in Italy. Giuseppina, who is described as a beauty queen, barely knows English and is young enough to be her new husband’s daughter. She’s really a trophy wife who doesn’t hide the fact that she married Hollywood Dick so that she could live in America as the wife of a man who can take care of her financial needs.

Hollywood Dick introduces Giuseppina to Dickie for the first time after she has already become Hollywood Dick’s wife. Dickie and his wife Joanna (played by Gabriella Piazza) eventually become parents to Christopher, their first child. Even though Dickie and Giuseppina are married to other people, it doesn’t take long for Giuseppina and Dickie to start looking at each other lustfully. Their feelings are also accelerated when Dickie finds out that his father is abusing Giuseppina. Dickie feels very protective of her, and he wants to help Giuseppina in her dream to own her own hair salon.

Meanwhile, Dickie is in regular contact with some of the African Americans who are part of the criminal underground in Newark. Harold McBrayer (played by Leslie Odom Jr.) collects bets for the mafia. In an early scene in the movie, Harold is shown beating up Leon Overall (played by Mason Bleu), the leader of an African American gang called the Saints, because Leon is suspected of stealing from Harold.

“The Many Saints of Newark” makes some attempt to be more racially diverse than “The Sopranos” by having a subplot about how Harold’s relationship with Dickie changes over time. The movie also has scenes depicting racial tensions, such as the Newark race riots and what happens when Harold’s relationship with Dickie is tested for another reason. But because the African American people in this movie are supporting characters, issues of racism are not at the forefront of this story.

And where is Tony Soprano during all of Dickie’s family drama? The movie trailers for “The Many Saints of Newark” make it look like the teenage Tony Soprano will be in nearly all of the film. He’s not. The teenage Tony Soprano doesn’t appear until 51 minutes into this two-hour movie.

Tony is a rebellious teen who needs a father figure more than ever when his father Johnny is arrested and sent to prison for assault with a deadly weapon. The arrest takes place in front of Tony and Janice. During Johnny’s incarceration, Dickie becomes even more of an influence on Tony.

Viewers who are looking for more insignt into Tony and Carmela’s teenage relationship won’t really get it in “The Many Saints of Newark.” There’s a scene where Tony and a few friends show off to Carmela by stealing an ice cream truck and giving away free ice cream to people in the neighborhood during this theft. At this point, Tony and Carmela aren’t officially a couple. He’s showing a romantic interest in her, but she’s not really all that impressed with him.

“The Many Saints of Newark” gives more background information about Tony’s rocky relationship with his mother Livia. There’s a minor subplot about Livia being in therapy (it’s implied that she might have bipolar disorder), she’s prescribed Elavil, and Tony wants some of the Elavil too. The only point to this subplot is that it’s a foreshadowing nod to a well-known “Sopranos” story arc about an adult Tony being in psychiatric therapy. Tony’s sessions with his therapist Dr. Melfi (played by Lorraine Bracco) were among the most-praised aspects of the TV series.

In addition to Tony and his sisters, “The Many Saints of Newark” has the younger versions of some other “Sopranos” characters, but they aren’t given much to do in this movie. John Magaro portrays a younger Silvio Dante, who was played by Steven Van Zandt in the TV series. Billy Magnussen depicts Paulie Walnuts, a role played by Tony Serico in the TV series. Samson Moeakiola is in the role of Pussy Bonpensiero, who was played by Vincent Pastore in the TV series.

However much “The Many Saints of Newark” might have been marketed as a Tony Soprano origin story, this movie is really a Dickie Moltisanti story, with Tony as a supporting character. The movie’s tagline is “Who Made Tony Soprano?,” but it still seems like a “bait and switch” marketing ploy. Throughout much of the movie, viewers might be asking instead, “Where is Tony Soprano?”

Fortunately, the performances by all of the movie’s cast members (especially Nivolo, Liotta, Odom and Farmiga) maintain a level of interest, along with the suspenseful aspects of the story. However, people who’ve seen enough American mafia movies will find a lot of familiar tropes in “The Many Saints of Newark.” Taylor doesn’t do anything spectacular with the movie’s direction. Chase and Konner approached the screenplay as if delving into Tony Soprano’s underage youth ultimately wouldn’t work as the central focus of a movie that showcases very adult crimes.

“The Saints of Newark” is not a bad movie, but it’s not a great one either, considering the high bar set by “The Sopranos.” The movie’s technical aspects, including the cinematography and production design, are perfectly adequate, but everything about “The Many Saints of Newark” looks like a made-for-TV movie, not a big event movie that was made for a theatrical release. As long as viewers know in advance that Tony Soprano is not the central character of “The Many Saints of Newark,” they have a better chance of enjoying this watchable but not essential entry in “The Sopranos” saga.

Warner Bros. Pictures released “The Many Saints of Newark” in U.S. cinemas and on HBO Max on October 1, 2021.