A slow-moving, gentle, poetic story about a loved up couple in New Jersey, Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson is strangely affecting.
Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bus driver in the city of Paterson, New Jersey – yes, he and the town share the same name. Every day, Paterson adheres to a simple routine: he wakes up between 6:10 and 6:30, has a bowl and cereal and then walks to work. He drives his daily route without fuss or bother or confrontation. He observes the city as it drifts across his windshield and overhears fragments of conversations swirling around him. Paterson also writes poetry, which he keeps to himself in a notebook. He writes it as he prepares to drive the bus out, at lunchtime and in his basement study at home. In a delightful and effective touch, the words are written onto the screen as they are spoken. At night, Paterson walks his British bulldog, stops in at the neighbourhood bar to drink one beer and then goes home to his wife, Laura (Golshifteh Farahani).
Laura in a dreamer and artist. She loves to paint in black and white, makes a mean cupcake topped with black and white icing, and has it in her mind to learn to play the guitar on not just any instrument, but a black and white harlequin model. Laura is driven by project after inspired project. She also champions Paterson’s gift for poetry and wants the world to be given access to it. To that end, she implores him to make a copy of his notebook. So it is that the film observes the triumphs and defeats of daily life, along with the poetry evident in its smallest details.
Jarmusch puts it well when he says Paterson is a quiet story. Its central characters don’t have any real dramatic conflict. Its structure is simple, following just one seven-day period in the lives of its subjects. “Paterson is intended as a celebration of the poetry of details, variations and daily interactions and a kind of antidote to dark, heavily dramatic or action-oriented cinema.” Jarmusch says it is a piece that “one should just allow to float past … like images seen from the window of a public bus”.
Although arguably a little too long, I found it enriching and observant – a welcome relief to the shock and awe that we are routinely fed. I greatly admire the route Jarmusch has chosen. This is a picture that allows us to take a deep breath and say the world isn’t such a bad place after all. Happiness does not have to be artificially created by non-stop, go, go action.
The performances of both Driver and Farahani are transfixing – he measured and contemplative, she energetic and enthusiastic. We only see her interact with him, but he does so with others as well and his manner never changes. Both their characters are incredibly respectful and sincere – call them salt of the Earth types, if you like.
While only a small movie, Paterson is a prized trophy that will undoubtedly find favour among film buffs, just as it should. Rated M, charming and unassuming, it scores a 7½ out of 10.
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Adam Driver, Golshifteh Farahani
Release Date: 22 December 2016
Rating: M
Alex First
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television